Avarice
by We Stole Vodka From The Optic
Summary: She was stealing his underwear. He walked in on her. Perfect start to any affair? One wouldn't think so. Reaver/Princess
1. Reaver's Unmentionables

**Current timeline: Before 'Traitors'.**

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Avarice

Chapter 1: Reaver's Unmentionables

_That boy is bad._

_And honestly!_

_He's a wolf,_

_in disguise!_

_But I can't stop staring in those evil eyes._

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Of all the stupid, idiotic and downright dumb things she had had to do for people in order to gain followers, _this, above all, _topped the list. Took the damn, bloody prize for it! Quite honestly, Princess Naveena had no idea why anyone would want _Reaver's _underwear.

Of the little she knew about the man, through Walter's stories, her mother's letters to a large monk in the North and her own, unfortunate experience with the ex-pirate, he had seemed a downright monster. The fact that he had one fan surprised her greatly, almost to the point that she had thought this a joke to try and get her in trouble for theft. (Oh, and how _embarrassing _that would be to explain to the guard. How would you explain that you were trying to steal someone's underwear to give to an obviously obsessed fan?)

She had considered against accepting the request.

But, as always, the rather desperate tone in Benjamina's voice had swayed her as easily as it would anyone else who used the same blasted tone. Naveena had always been a gullible one, and her trusting and agreeable nature often put her at the point where she could easily be taken advantage of. This, was something that could, and would, get her into deep trouble one day.

Had she known that _today _would be the day her easily swayed nature would get her into trouble, she would've run as quickly away from Benjamina, run in the way someone would run if they had a legendary White Balverine on their heels.

It was dark in the Millfields that night, and Naveena, ex-princess and current leader of the revolution, stalked alongside the shores of Bower Lake. She had all the stature of her mother, and bore the elegant and aristocratic features of the former Hero Queen. One could, had they known Sparrow, have possibly mistaken Naveena for her mother. A much younger, less scarred version of her mother, but her mother nonetheless.

Naveena approached the large mansion with a sense of anxiety and apprehension. She had stolen things before, nicked gold from cash registers when the shopkeepers weren't looking, and all manners of items. But _this, _this was a heist like no other. It was as if she felt she were going to get caught, as if doing this was something so incredibly amoral. Naveena wondered, distantly, if Theresa felt like this all the time.

_Theresa… _The rebellion, the revolution came back upon her shoulders once more. She'd seen the wanted signs, recently, and had been growing increasingly worried over the fact that any of her allies could possibly be killed at any given moment. It was a worrying thought.

She brought herself back to the task at hand, and entered into the mansion's rear garden. If possible, she had wanted to avoid the front door because, _honestly, _that was just asking for trouble. The garden, she noticed, was neatly trimmed with hunter green hedges and there were spots of roses and other flowers throughout the rather labyrinth-like garden. It didn't quite surprise Naveena; Reaver's vanity seemed to extend to even his estate.

Pushing back her short red hair, cut in a boy's style because that was how she liked it and men be damned, she looked for any way to enter the mansion. Vines, with neatly cut roses dotting the green, climbed far up towards the windows. A cliché way to enter any house, Naveena supposed, but damn clichés, she was _not _going to just waltz through the front door like an idiot.

Naveena placed both hands on the pale walls, and reminded herself that this was, once again, the dumbest, most moronic thing she had ever done. Grabbing part of the vine with one hand, Naveena settled her feet into the crook of another vine, and began pulling. The vines whined slightly in protest, and the ex-princess sighed. She _knew _she shouldn't have had that pie on the way here after getting mauled by Balverines.

Bloody hell, she _was not using a door. _What manner of moron would do that? Especially when walking into the house of a man such as _Reaver? _A man who's skill with a gun, (No pun intended, hur hur.) went unmatched?

The Rebel Leader pulled herself upwards, praying with all the faith she had to the Light, hoping that she wouldn't fall and break her neck. Now _that _would be an unfortunate end to her revolution. Surprisingly, she didn't fall. Naveena gave out a thankful sigh before pulling herself up again. Her gauntlets, in response to her exertions, let out a tiny gasp of electricity, while the other sparkled with the magnificence of her blades spell.

Her hammer, Judgement, was making the crawl up the wall particularly difficult. Naveena's pistol, Peace, bounced against her thigh as she continued the climb. Her fingers reached the window lattice, and Naveena, who finally realized just how scared of heights she really was, began breathing heavily. A silent mantra repeated in her head, imploring that she most certainly should _not _look down.

Gulping, Naveena pulled herself onto the window lattice and peered inside. It appeared to be a living room, adorned with pictures (Including one which depicted Reaver as a woman… what?) and a drunkard was splayed out on the couch, a chalice of empty wine dangling from his fingers. Feeling her fingers beginning to get tired, Naveena pulled herself through the window, pushing open the shutter and falling inside with a loud clatter.

She'd landed on a half-naked woman, who appeared to be passed out, surrounded by more empty goblets.

Naveena reminded herself to never attend any party Reaver orchestrated. Though, she supposed it was a little late for that, considering the whole Masquerade thing.

The unknown and indecent woman moaned, and stirred slightly as Naveena practically jumped off of her, resulting in the rather poor underpants thief to bump against a dark red recliner and fall backwards into the chair.

Naveena supposed she would never be a professional cat burglar.

Wrenching herself out of the recliner, Naveena navigated herself around the snoring lush, and pushed open the door of the supposed living room, her fingers brushing against the handle of her rather comforting pistol, finding herself in a hallway.

There were more pictures, more symbols of Reaver's increasing pride and… a piano? Well, that was surprising to find. Naveena scowled however, because upon closer inspection, there appeared to be a completely naked man sitting at the keys. The tattoo on his back was jarring as well, a rather oddly drawn heart with the words 'Love G' inside. Huh. Odd.

The ex-princess shook her head, and rubbed at aching temples. She was getting _distracted._

Pressing herself against the walls in a vain attempt to skulk around in the shadows without being seen, she listened distantly for any sound of life within the mansion. She'd been lucky enough to get into the mansion _after _one of Reaver's parties and not _during _one of them. The fact that the majority of the party's denizens were knocked out worked rather well in her favor. Poor sods, though. Waking up naked on a piano with a hangover was not a way to wake up.

Naveena peered through the doors, looking for anything that might have remotely resembled a bedroom. There were more drunkards, including a poor woman with her face in a plate of rather delicious-looking salad, more portraits and no sign of a bedroom or a pleasure chamber. Which, actually, Naveena would have _loved _to have _not _heard of.

Benjamina was really starting to _scare _the Hero with her knowledge of Reaver's… _activities._

The ex-princess came upon a short flight of stairs, and listened intently once more for the sound of anyone, any_thing _that could come upon her.

"_Bark!" _

Naveena nearly jumped several feet in the air. Turning around, one foot on the stairs, Naveena shot a fierce glance down the hall, fingers tightly clenched around her pistol. Ace was running down the hall, a pair of what appeared to be goggles dangling from his mouth. Naveena let out an exasperated and indignant sigh, bending down to greet her black and white dog. Ace barked again, the goggles in his mouth jiggling with every movement of his bestial mouth.

"Oh, _Ace," _She scratched the back of his ears, and he blinked up at her in that usual, cute little way. "You just couldn't let me go on my own, could you?"

He barked again.

"Well," Though she wouldn't admit it, not even to this dog who hardly had any knowledge of the human language, it felt better to have someone at her side while she was doing this. "C'mon then."

It was then, that she looked upon the goggles, noticing them truly for the first time. She bent down again, on one knee, examining the thing in her Ace's mouth, before attempting to gently take it from him. Ace growled, jumping backwards, and leaned forward as if they were going to be playing a game.

"Hey!" Naveena lunged forward, only to have Ace jump around her and head up the stairs with a deftness and gracefulness not even she, a bloody _Hero, _could have hoped to achieve. Naveena groaned, looked back behind her to check that no one was coming to investigate the noise, and bounded up the steps after Ace.

"_Bloody dog! This isn't a game!"_

She'd been foolish, perhaps, to associate anything related to Reaver as not being a game. She was also, even more foolhardy considering that she was blindly following a dog to Avo-Knows-Where. Naveena hurried up the steps, her well-worn boots squeaking slightly in protest with every step. Eventually, she found Ace within a well-hidden subsection of a bedroom.

Upon wondering through the doorway to that subsection, she had frozen.

Unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly, Ace had led her straight to where she had wanted to go. A king-sized bed, covered in the most expensive of bedsheets, was sitting in the middle of the room. The room, the pleasure chamber, itself was actually rather sparse in the sense that there seemed to truly be nothing but sex that went on in here. A rather modern collection of nightstands were collected around the bed and the walls were adorned with…

Cages? Cages with chickens inside of them? What…? No. Naveena most certainly did _not _want to know.

Ace sat in the middle of the room, just in front of the bed, those blasted goggles still dangling lifelessly from his mouth. The dog wagged his tail slightly, and barked once more, dropping the goggles at his feet.

"I don't know whether to say good boy or not." Naveena groaned, bending over to pick up the goggles and look at them.

The goggles had a thin band the was now drool-covered and riddled with holes where Ace had bit into them. The glass covering them was both opaque and yet vaguely translucent, and the goggles themselves had been framed by gold filigree. For some reason, though Naveena knew not what the nagging reason was, she felt as if she had seen these somewhere before.

Or rather, on some_one _before.

But before she could place the goggles on someone in the recesses of her mind, Naveena jumped, hearing the faint sound of footsteps down the hall. There was a clicking sound amongst them, a sound much like the clicking of heels on hard surfaces. Naveena hurried behind the bed, and Ace growled at the empty doorway. Naveena looked at him, worried, but Ace looked back at her as if to say 'Don't worry.'

Naveena crawled behind the headboard of the bed, crouched, her pistol pulled tightly out and held with slightly trembling fingers. The footsteps stopped, ceased, and Naveena heard the unfortunate voice of the very man who's underwear she was planning to steal,

"There you _are, _you dirty mongrel."

Ace growled again, and Naveena was hunkered down there, letting out silent, panicky breaths. Ever since Reaver had somehow deflected the bullet from Page's pistol with nothing but a thin sliver of _brass, _Naveena had found herself almost… fearful of the man's skills. And, considering that he was on _Logan's _side and not theirs… the ex-princess almost feared for her own life.

There was the click of Reaver cocking the gun, and Naveena, before she could really, truly consider the consequences of her own actions, stood, and pointed the pistol directly at Reaver. He was oddly enough, devoid of his hat, and it was then that Naveena realized that the goggles Ace had found had belonged to none other than _Reaver._

His dark hair stuck up at odd angles, as if he'd gone through a serious tussle and yet had come out of it unscathed. When he caught sight of the revolutionary something had flickered in the opaque pools of his eyes, as if the sight of Naveena had brought back a well-hidden memory, but it had only lasted a second and he smirked at her, a smirk that reeked of depravity and immoral contrivances.

"Well, _well_," Reaver had turned his attention away from Ace, who was still growling at the tall man in an attempt to help his own mistress. The deviant was now pointing the Dragonstomper .48 at her, the Rebel Leader. "If it isn't the rebel leader herself! Have you reconsidered my _offer?"_

There, the two of them stood. Naveena, with her own pistol, Peace pointed at Reaver. And Reaver, with his trusted Dragonstomper .48 pointed at her. The two of them did not move, though the gargantuan smirk on the blasted man's face twitched just the tiniest bit. Naveena scowled at Reaver's derision. The man was acting as if _he _were the one in control.

"No?" Reaver's hand wavered slightly, gyrating his wrist in an attempt to accentuate the fact that he had a pistol in his hand. _She _should be the one fearing _his _skills. He returned to mocking her, "Then you've come to do what your busty little friend couldn't? How _annoying!"_

Naveena cocked her gun, though it was more as a threat than anything else. However, it was then that Reaver shot, and Peace flew out of her hand, landing on top of the mattress behind her. Naveena's lips parted, and she looked back at her trusty pistol, the one thing that had given her control of the matter at hand.

"Ah, ah, ah, my _sweet." _He was mocking her again. "I can't have you _shooting _at me. Would you really put holes in this handsome face?"

This wasn't good.

Naveena looked at Reaver, who still had his pistol pointed at her. She couldn't possibly use her hammer, as Reaver had the advantage of putting a bullet in her head before she could even move. The same went for her gauntlets; for all the time she could take to charge up her spells, Reaver still could kill her.

Ace growled once more.

No, this wasn't good at all.

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**Avarice is a project I'm working on for Fable 3. The timeline is before Traitors, which means Naveena hasn't headed over to the Castle with Ben yet. The idea for this came from the idea of 'What would happen in Reaver found you trying to steal his underwear?'**

**For those of you not familiar with the seven deadly sins or over-complicated synonyms, Avarice is the greed for wealth or is an unreasonably strong desire to keep and obtain money.**

**This story will continue through the Main Plot of the story but with one twist; Reaver is prevalent through more of the Main Plot, and does not act solely as the devil's advocate during the time of Rule.**

**Also, no sappy, moral or righteous Reaver here. Reaver will remain Reaver, though with decidedly more layers of amoral than was seen in the game. So, if you're looking for a Reaver being changed then GTFO. Or stay. I love you readers.**

**Naveena, which is what I named my princess, is tomboyish and not without her faults. She's a good person, but slightly corrupt, as she steals gold and things and doesn't always do the honorable thing. And she's got that Short Fringe haircut, the one Elliot's got. (I think…?)**

**Oh, and before I forget, I am not incredibly good at writing amoral characters. So, if anyone has any tips on writing Reaver, send them my way.**

**On a less important note, did anyone buy Benjamina's house during this quest? I did just for the sake of having that giant-ass picture of Reaver and his unicorn.**

**Feedback is appreciated.**


	2. Complications

Avarice

Chapter 2: Complications

_I've got more wit…_

_A better kiss…_

_A better fuck…_

_Than any boy you'll ever meet,_

_Sweetie you had me._

_Panic At The Disco – Lying Is The Most Fun_

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Ace jumped forward, a bullet of fur within the room. He latched himself onto the expensive sleeve of Reaver's Balverine fur-lined coat, a growling, snarling and vicious force. Ace sunk his teeth into fabric, ripping the white cloth. The action from the 'dirty mongrel', as Reaver had dubbed him, caught the industrialist off guard, and the man backed away, his fingers still clenching the feared Dragonstomper .48 as if it were his lifeline.

Seeing an opportunity, Naveena reached for the handle of her hammer, Judgment from over her shoulder. Slinging it forward, the Heroine brought forth the crux of her Strength, a rush of adrenaline whipping itself through her veins. She swung the hammer forward, shutting her eyes tightly, fingers clasped around the exotic handle securely.

Reaver's murky eyes glimmered with something similar to deviousness, a sort of knowing that she would attempt to kill him. He swung his hand backwards, and the part of the sleeve that Ace had been clutching to with sharp teeth ripped, and the collie's body flew backwards, thrown into the wall sharply. The dog fell with a dull sound, falling unconscious and unaware of his mistresses' quandary, his teeth still clutching the precious _objet d'art._

And then, as brazen as he could, Reaver did what was expected of a sly, roguish Hero of Skill: He ducked.

The Hammer went whizzing over the top of Reaver's head, barely gracing the tips of his kinky, dark hair. He looked up at Naveena, those brown eyes crinkling as if this were all a humorous joke, a sad, tragic comedy replaying the maybe final moments of her life.

Naveena's lips parted in horror, her blue eyes wide with fear and recognition. And again, Reaver did a dastardly move: He tackled her. His shoulder rammed into her midsection, and the two went down beside the king-sized bed in a tangle of limbs and hatred. Reaver straddled her, pinned her wrists high above her head, and Naveena tried desperately to writhe out of the man's vice-like grip.

He leaned forward, his lips only inches from her own. He smiled, smirked at her obvious plight, and Naveena tried desperately to knee him in the place where it hurt most. He brought his knee up to the most intimate section of her body, and Naveena felt Reaver's breath on his lips.

"Hmm, _why _don't we just end all this useless violence, _princess?" _He was mocking her, and was oh-so-delighted by the furious expression in those sea-like orbs of hers. "Perhaps we can _negotiate?" _Reaver emphasized just what he meant by negotiating by kissing the corner of her chin, something that seemed so eerily innocuous and yet held darker, more sordid undertones.

In response, the revolutionary spat in his face, that furious countenance never once leaving her.

The deviant's vanity demanded he let go of her wrists to take care of the spittle that was now trailing across his tattooed cheek like an abstract painter's paints, which was mere instinct for someone as prideful and vain as Reaver but the fact that he'd let go of her wrists proved to be a foolish move. The second his hands left hers, Naveena provided a most powerful, adrenaline-filled punch which landed rather perfectly on Reaver's heart tattoo.

With a satisfactory groan, the man rolled off of the ex-princess, who scrambled to her feet to get the Dragonstomper .48, which had skittered off to the side during her and Reaver's scuffle. The gun was there, just out of reach, when Naveena tripped over her own two feet in an attempt to get it. She fell on her knees, and reached forward with desperate, tangible fingers.

All it took was a nudge from Reaver's boot and what Naveena had considered at the moment to be her saving grace was knocked from her grasp. Naveena came face-to-face with the toe of Reaver's shoes, and slowly, so painstakingly slowly, she raised her head upwards to stare into the barrel of her own gun.

She prayed to all the deities, Avo, Skorm, the Light and the Shadow, bloody hell at this point she would give obeiscene to the damned _Void _if it would save her.

"My dear, as I said before, all this fighting is so… _droll. _Perhaps we can forget all this and… _traipse _the bed over there, hmm?"

He pushed back dark locks with a gloved hand, an intolerable smirk plastered on the industrialist's handsome face. Avo, how Naveena despised him.

"Shove off." Was her short, meaningful reply.

At this point, if she were to go down, she vowed she would go down as audaciously as she could.

"Ah, it can't be helped," He waved her gun boldly, his eyes going to half-mast. "Though, I do prefer it when my bedfellows are more… _active."_

She gazed at him from below heavily lidded eyes, her blue eyes sparkling with something similar to determination, disgust and uncertainty. Reaver's cheek twisted slightly with a malign smile, and his long finger tightened around the trigger finger. Naveena shut her eyes tightly, digging her fingers into the cracks of the flagstone floors.

The sound of a gunshot echoed through the air.

And the bullet whizzed past Naveena, missing her by only a few inches. Naveena's eyes snapped open and she looked sharply to the side, as smoke curled from her pistol and into the air, dissipating. She blinked, dumbly, before the realization came to her.

Reaver was playing games with her.

This angered Naveena, oh it had _vexed _her.

"You do _so _look like your mother when you look at me like that," Reaver tilted his head ever-so-slightly, mocking her. "My, how it brings back such _memories!"_

Naveena moved to one knee, slowly, her eyes never leaving his imposing form. He watched her, calmly, that insufferable smirk still pressed against the corners of his lips. With snail's speed, Naveena rose to her full height, realizing with disdain that Reaver had a greater height advantage to her by half a head. She looked to the corners of her eyes, the gaze falling upon the crumpled body of her companion, Ace, and her hammer which had been knocked out of her hand.

She looked back to Reaver, who once more had her own pistol pointed at her, and she tensed again.

What little she knew of diplomacy, of negotiating, wouldn't work on a man as unreasonable as Reaver. He had about as much **reason **as a Hobbe on holiday. Reaver steadied his hand once again, letting out an annoyed and exasperated sigh, and this time, Naveena wondered if he intended to miss.

He pulled back the hammer of the pistol, watching Naveena through bored, inattentive eyes that sparkled darkly.

"Wait!" If her lips hadn't moved, and the voice hadn't come out of her throat, Naveena would have never thought that she had spoken. "I'll… I'll do anything! Just don't-"

She had hooked him at anything; "_Anything…? _Why, you little minx! Relying on your charms to get what you want! I applaud you!"

"Except _that." _She spat, her upper lip curling in disgust. Naveena wondered if that was all Reaver ever thought about. She must have looked dreadfully amusing, because the damn smirk that Reaver was showing off seemed to grow, larger and larger, like an untamed weed.

"Well then, let us negotiate the terms of this a_greement." _He lowered the pistol just a bit, still wary of the girl in front of him. Her eyebrows furrowed, her lip curled into a menacing sneer, and her blue eyes twinkled with something similar to barely-contained fury. Naveena watched him carefully, looking for any kind of opening.

There was, of course, no opening. She was foolish to think that this dreadful man would really let his guard down.

"Go ahead," She bristled, her own pride demanding that she not back down from Reaver. "I'm at _your _mercy, Reaver."

This pleased him, a sick kind of pleasure that one would derive from kicking a defenseless kitten and then beating it with a newspaper around the head, and that untamed weed of a smirk only seemed to grow and grow and grow. Those dark pools of depravity seemed lost in thought, and then, as if a sudden idea had come to him, his cheeks twisted wolfishly.

"How about you, my beautiful princess, come work at my _lovely," _He emphasized it, as if to press upon Naveena that his manor was indeed lovely. "Manor for a week, and we can forget this little… _transgression."_

Naveena balked, she paled, her countenance did all manners of things to express her displeasure. _Work? _For _him? _Never! No! Not while a rebellion was being planned, not while her revolution was just at her fingertips!

"No!"

Reaver frowned, a small frown that frightened Naveena even more than his usual smirk. His brown eyes glittered with something that could only be described as pure malevolence, and Naveena bristled.

"I think you misunderstand, _mon cherie, _I didn't _ask." _He raised the pistol again, a veiled threat.

Naveena opened her mouth to speak, but Reaver boldly placed a finger over her lips, and she shot him a smoldering glare. He smiled, and she was reminded sharply of a mischievous cat. Reaver gave her a look that was stuck between a warning and what he supposed was a seductive visage.

"_Besides," _He stressed his words again, and the revolutionary tensed. This could only mean something bad. "Wouldn't it be a dreadful shame if the location of your little Resistance Group was leaked to the King…?"

Her lips parted, her eyes widened. Reaver couldn't have possibly meant…

"Oh yes, because I've come across a deliciously _scandalous _report regarding all of them. And I can just _imagine _the treasures King Logan would bestow upon me if I told him the location of his dear little sister."

"You wouldn't dare-"Naveena started, but Reaver brusquely cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Believe me, my little minx, I would _dare."_

Naveena weighed her options carefully, regarding the raised pistol with pinched blue eyes. He would dare. She knew enough of Reaver to know that he was out for himself, and that it would be naïve to think that he would care if Albion fell into disrepair because Logan was still in the throne and she were in a dungeon, rotting away.

There was only one way forward, that much Naveena knew.

"Fine," She answered, retorted really, in a tone that very much intoned her anger. "Fine."

He drummed long fingers along the pistol, looked at her with half-lidded eyes, as if _bored _by her sudden submission. But there was something there, something she couldn't describe. Naveena tried not to dwell on it.

"Wonderful," There was a drip of sarcasm somewhere in that voice. "Go home, gather your things, and I will send a carriage in the morning to your house. Tatty-bye!"

The long walk back from Millfields, with Ace in her arms, was long indeed.

* * *

Elliot was worried. Worried in the way any good husband would be if their wife were out too late. He wondered if she got caught up with bandits on the road, or perhaps the few Balverines that stalked the gates outside of Bowerstone at night. That thought, sent the coldest shiver down his spine. Though he knew Naveena to be very, very capable, he still couldn't help but worry. Naveena had once called him a worry-wart, kissed him and laughed, saying she could take care of herself.

"_I can take care of myself, you know." She had responded, folding her arms over her chest. Elliot noticed she was wearing a practical outfit, one stuffier nobles might have scoffed at. Elegance was key in the Court, but Naveena had never cared much for things like elegance. She didn't even know how to cook, or sew, or even the proper way to hold an eating utensil. Naveena was one for the art of swordplay, and that had been what occupied her time._

_Elliot wouldn't have had it any way. He enjoyed the company of his practical princess._

"_Oh?" He challenged, looking at her in that teasing way. "Prove it."_

_Naveena kissed him boldly, again uncaring of the stuffy nobles that watched them, scrutinizing their princess' every move. _

"_How's that?"_

"_That'll do just fine."_

Smiling slightly, though the smile was still tinged with a hint of worry, Elliot turned from their modest window to go back into the middle of their house. Yes, Naveena could take care of herself. He sat at the worn table, picking at the food he'd cooked earlier. She had promised she would be back later, after running an errand for their neighbor, Benjamina, though Elliot was unaware of what she was doing for their crazy neighbor. Had he known she was stealing Reaver's underwear, he would have stopped her.

He shoveled a bit of food into his mouth, though it did absolutely nothing to ease the increasing trepidation he was getting as the grandfather clock in the corner of the room moved slowly, the minutes ticking by with still no sign of his wife. Elliot sighed, and stood up, moving back to the window to look out at the outskirts of Bowerstone.

Elliot admired the moon, which was shining at full blast in the deep black sky. He furrowed his brow, and began worrying again. As a few minutes passed, he turned away from the window once more, nibbling at his nails, a bad habit that he'd picked up from Naveena.

It was when the grandfather clock announced that another hour had gone by before the door had opened. Elliot, who had been folding laundry, jumped, whipping around to face his wife who had arrived so early in the wee hours.

Naveena trailed in, tired and angry about what had occurred at Reaver's Mansion, and Ace held his head down, following her, feeling as if he'd betrayed or angered his mistress somehow. She must have looked a fright, because before she could even register the fact that her husband was home, he rushed over to her.

"Welcome home, love!" He pressed a kiss to her cheekbone, a kiss that seemed hardly tangible, and Naveena gave him a look askance before collapsing into one of the chairs in their kitchen.

"Sorry," Naveena shot a look at the pendulum that was swinging to and fro so very slowly. "I promised I'd be back early, didn't I?"

She didn't need to regale her husband with the story of her broken hubris, nor of the fact that she was going be demoted to scullery maid in the next week. Elliot smiled, touching his wife's shoulder softly, as if she were some glass doll that could be easily broken.

"It's fine, I know how it is, with the rebellion and all." Elliot suddenly made a pained face. "Knowing Walter, he's probably got you worked to the bone."

"I'll be leaving again soon, though." She looked at him apologetically. "I'm going to the Silverpines tomorrow, for a week."

"What? You can't just…" He trailed off, turning away from his wife, submitting to her. Though Naveena loved him, truly, Elliot took things harshly, personally. She scooted out of her chair, and Ace whimpered, a poor, pathetic sound that was drowned by the scratching of floppy ears. Naveena stood behind Elliot, and gave him a stiff, short hug.

"I'm sorry, love."

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**EDIT: Fixed a few errors, and rewrote things that I did not like.**


	3. Nightmares and Nuisances

Avarice

Chapter 3: Nightmares and Nuisances

_I get as far as your door before I get caught…_

_I make up excuses just to touch you…_

_And I can't stop…_

_I can't…_

_So are we playing for keeps?_

_Matchbox Romance – Playing For Keeps_

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_

Though she had decided that the best way to go about keeping her friends safe was killing Reaver, Naveena had no idea on how she was going to do that, exactly. She couldn't just straight-out try to kill him. After all, Page had tried that and they both saw how well _that _had turned out. No, Naveena had no clue how she was going to kill the man who pretty much had life itself clutched inside his dirty hands. But she had to try. Life be damned, she _had _to try.

In the morning, Naveena wrote a rather long note explaining to Elliot that she would be gone for a week, out in the Silverpines helping traveling merchants fend off Balverines. She had hoped that would keep Elliot away, long enough for her to assassinate Reaver. No person, not even a man worried and in love, would go after a woman surrounded by Balverines.

Placing the piece of parchment beside a bag of gold, her family's upkeep, Naveena waited outside for the carriage Reaver had promised he would send. She drummed her fingers along the edge of her pistol, nervously looking about. The outskirts of Bowerstone Market were where she and Elliot lived. It was a small house, with a tiny garden in the front and an upstairs extra bedroom but… it was enough, at least enough until she had a bit more money.

This was but a major setback. To all of her plans.

The early beams of light filtered in through the heavy clouds. Looking up, Naveena supposed it would begin raining soon. That would only dampen her mood more, and Avo or whatever god was nestled in that vast, vapid sky seemed to hate her, and appreciated tormenting her in new and creative ways. She cursed whatever amused, enlightened being that seemed to enjoy her pain. She watched the clouds move, crowd together like tiny balls of cotton and for a second, a blissful, nonsensical second, Naveena wished she could join them.

A clacking of hooves brought her attentions back to the world around her. On the road out of town, the one which stretched lengthily into the countryside, over valleys, bridges and through blasted caves and eventually lead to the Millfields and Bower Lake, there walked a large, luxurious carriage. One that, obviously, only someone with a lot of money would have been able to afford. Naveena scowled as the carriage slowed to a pretentious stop at her home and out stepped a stout, ugly little man from the driver's seat.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you again!" She recognized the man as the butler who'd been crawling around Reaver's little coastal paradise during the Masquerade. Her scowl grew even darker, even deeper. "The rebel, that right?"

The strange little man, as Page had eloquently put it, put a hand underneath his chin, observing Naveena for a moment. She felt vaguely as if she were being undressed, and the fingers clenched around her pistol grew tighter, and the temptation to shoot _something _became greater.

"Yeah, I recognize them cheekbones!" He nodded, as if a form of great recognition had been bestowed upon him. "Master 'Eaver likes high cheekbones, y'know."

"Can we _go?" _Naveena spat back, the grip around her pistol was turning her knuckles white. "I have the unquenchable urge to s_hoot you."_

In reaction to this threat, one that Naveena seemed all too willing to carry out, the man raised up his hands as if to protect himself. Though, the wry smirk that played along his lips told Naveena that he didn't quite believe she would do well on her threat. This man, was a fool.

"Alright, but _no weapons. _Precautions and all, I'm sure you understand." Still smiling that stupid wry smile that Naveena only _wished _she could wipe off her face, the man held out his hands, waiting for her to hand over her weapons.

Ace stepped out beside her, growling at the man as if he were a troll of some sort. "Down boy," Naveena commanded and down Ace went.

"And _no dogs."_

She scoffed, of course she wasn't going to give him her weapons, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist." Every word was spat out as if it were venom, as if some poison had been laced across her tongue, seeping in through the cracks between her teeth. She smiled back at him, in a way that was always mocking. If she couldn't mock Reaver at the moment, she was going to mock this man.

Naveena had no qualms about shooting the messenger. Especially a messenger of that amoral man.

"Well," The man shrugged, a slight annoyed glimmer dancing in his eyes. "I'm afraid _I'm _going to have to insist as well. Last time I let you buggers in, you killed all of Master 'Eaver's guests!"

With an indignant sigh, one that displayed clearly what she thought of the man's insistence, she unbuckled her pistol, removed her hammer and slipped off her gauntlets. Though it may have been possible to slip the gauntlets in, they had the unfortunate tendency to flicker with light, or shower the air with miniscule sparks. The ornate tattoos that swirled in deep whorls around her eyes shone lightly, in reflection of her own anger.

The man shoved her weapons into the front of the carriage, where they would be safely away from Naveena's grip. The horses in the front of the carriage, one a deep golden-brown and the other a more reddish color, whinnied slightly.

Ace whimpered at her, and she turned to the dog, scratching his ears, "I'll be back before you know it, boy."

He barked at her.

Naveena realized she had never quite seen carriages before. They were quite rare, even in the castle. Horses were rare as well, and usually were seen in the bowels of Samarkand rather than the more chilly Albion.

Deciding not to really ponder this oddity, she watched as the vulgar 'butler' opened the door to the carriage for her. She stepped in, and felt distantly like a mouse caught in a cage as the door was closed. The butler moved to the front of the carriage, stepped in, jolting the carriage a little, and whipped the reins.

Naveena toyed with ideas on the assassination and kept to herself, ignoring the man's lackluster jokes and destructive puns.

A rare smile spread itself across her lips.

* * *

They were greeted by an array of maids, and one woman, a girl that went by the name of Ada lead Naveena to the guest room. She was told that she wouldn't be staying in the servant's quarters, with the rest of the manor's staff.

Naveena didn't remember seeing a servant's quarters when she'd gone through the castle in search of Reaver's bedroom. (Oh dear, that sounded dreadfully like a euphemism in her mind.)

"It's in the basement, dear." Said Ada. She was a young woman who couldn't have been older than Naveena herself, with dark, very dark, hair and light green, demure eyes. She was delightfully pretty, though Naveena suspected Reaver didn't hire ugly staff. The two walked through the corridors, and Naveena recognized the one they walked through as the one Ace had found her in.

Ada lead her to a door only a few steps away from Reaver's own bedroom. This thought, made Naveena slightly sick to her stomach. She had wanted to be as far away from the bastard as possible. But, she supposed, beggars couldn't always be choosers.

In fact, Naveena tried to think of ways that she could use this to her advantage.

With a slightly grandiose flourish, Ada opened the door for Naveena. The furnishings itself were slightly sparse. A single bed, covered in red cotton sheets with a single golden R stitched into the middle of it, was moved to the wall, just below a large, grand window. An empty cherry desk, and a bookshelf stood to the side, and looked as if they didn't belong there in the room.

"Master Reaver wanted you to announce your arrival to him," Ada drawled, and Naveena turned from the bed to look at her. Ada twirled a dark piece of hair around her finger. "He's waiting in the master bedroom, down the hall."

Naveena made a face, a face one would make had they swallowed a very sour lemon. With that, Ada left, walking away in a dignified, noble manner that made the princess of Albion's toes curl within her shoes. In a way, whatever had been left of her shattered pride, went ahead and _shriveled. She _didn't even have that great of posture.

Swallowing her own sense of bitterness, and the realization that she had no tools to kill Reaver as she announced herself, the girl made her way down the portrait-filled hall to the bedroom. The door had been cracked just enough, and Naveena knocked, once.

There was no answer.

She knocked again.

Irritated, and wondering if this was just another one of Reaver's attempts to alienate her, Naveena pushed open the door with one hand. It creaked slightly, sending a sound that reverberated through the room. There was no one on the bed, and the hearth was cackling slightly with dying embers. The sanguine-colored chairs that had been placed in front of the fireplace had one visitor. Reaver's top hat had been discarded onto the chair beside the occupied one, thrown on top of a haphazardly abandoned fur-lined coat and brass cane.

Reaver was sleeping in the chair.

Naveena, feeling awkward for walking in on something as solitary and yet as simple as sleeping, walked around to face Reaver, who was slumped inside of the chair, both hands resting on the armrests. Dark, tangled bangs were plastered to closed eyes. Circles pooled beneath those eyes, surprisingly enough. Naveena knew Reaver to be a vain man, and for him to have bags… well, that just didn't seem right.

She leaned in, her face inches away from his own. It was… fascinating, to say the least. He seemed less… vibrant, less like an immoral cad when he was asleep.

His eyelids shuddered, and Naveena had jumped at the sudden movement. He was… dreaming? Monsters, Boogeymen could dream? Why, it _seemed surreal._

Naveena realized that she could kill him.

Eyes widening with the realization, Naveena pushed back her short, boyish and red bangs, surveying her sleeping victim with newer, more morbid interest. Her fingers crawled towards his exposed throat, past ruffles and expensive cloth and her fingertips graced a vein.

Five minutes.

All it would, all it _could _take was five minutes for her to kill him.

She reached for his throat, and the man continued to dream on.

* * *

Reaver was dreaming. And, as always, it was that same, damn dream. It was _this _that he feared alone. This weakness, this… despicableness. This s_hame. _He couldn't be bothered with fancies of the past, regrets, of the past. Yet, whenever he closed his eyes, he could hear their screams, _her screams. _

"_We will take our sacrifice in full. You must offer more, more for us to be assuaged."_

Yes, what a weak, despicable man he was.

That man ran through fields and trees, branches and grassy leaves whipping across his face. He ran, ran as soon as he saw the first plumages of smoke, heard the first foretaste of screams. There was a hill, overlooking Oakvale, and it had been, once, a gateway into Barrow Fields. Tripping over himself, that weak man looked upon an inferno that had once been known as Oakvale. This was his Hell, and the claws of Skorm raked themselves over Oakvale, tearing it apart with greedy, insatiable fingers.

Shadows had come to Oakvale.

An army of impish-looking monsters overran houses, and the man could spot a few of the villagers, a few of his friends even, being taken by them. One house, nearest to him, collapsed in on itself, and spits of fire raised themselves to the dark, angry maelstrom of a sky.

The man fell to his knees at the realization that this was _his _fault. That the Shadows, the darkness, it had all been because of his own, selfish wish. Falling to his knees, that weak man felt himself grow sick, and he found himself throwing up into the very field he sat in.

"_But still, I see Oakvale devoured by Shadows. Still, those shrieks fill the air."_

Wiping his mouth with a debauched sleeve, the man forced himself onto unsteady, treacherous feet and looked once more – forced himself to look – upon the place he once, a very long time ago, called home.

The Shadows had left all but his own home untouched by their blight.

Forcing himself to walk erratically through that field and past burning houses and dead bodies, past Shadows who paid attention only to the ones that the Judges had deemed their prey, the man found himself at the tiny little _hovel _that he had lived in.

_She _lay at its doorstep, a crumpled body with a vapid, pale face. He choked on his own breath, fell to his knees once again to lay at her side. He pushed back dirty, blond locks with unreliable fingers, forced his head into the crook of a pale neck.

How was he to know that the Shadow Court would take them all? Even she?

"_I see that man as he was, back then. As beautiful as me. As fiery as me. But so… delicate. So breakable. So… afraid of death."_

* * *

"Sibyl…"

Her fingers touched that vein, and Naveena recoiled, stepping backwards quickly, as if the name that had come out of Reaver's mouth was a whip of some kind. The man was still dreaming, slumped unmoving in that sanguine armchair. The hearth behind Naveena and in front of him… the dying embers whispered silent ghosts across the floors.

Naveena sneered, and her upper lip curled into a silent snarl. She was no coward! Her pride had been shattered by this man, her revolution in danger because of him! And yet, she had shied away from him the second he spoke that odious name. Sibyl. Who was Sibyl?

The hearth cackled, its death rattle a final, finite sound within the bedroom. Naveena outstretched her arm once more, gathered the courage, the desire to kill once more and…

And she found that she could not do it.

That name, that damned name, had actually reared in a sense of _pity _for this man. Her conscious, had decided at that _exact moment, _to appear. It had been the way Reaver had whispered it, in a tone of voice that Naveena found she couldn't pinpoint, that made her stop.

She growled, clenched her fists. Another time, then. It was shameful, perhaps, to take advantage of a sleeping victim. Or really, it was her own way of making excuses.

Naveena called herself a coward. Page, the Resistance, needed to be safe. So why, why couldn't she just _do it._

The hands positioned on the armrests tightened on the gold filigree that was fashioned on the ends. Reaver stirred a bit, and sinister eyes opened themselves to the real world once more. For a split second, Naveena found herself looking into the eyes of someone who couldn't possibly _be _Reaver. There was a certain… bleakness in the shadowed eyes that looked up at her that couldn't possibly belong to someone as confident, as raving mad as the lothario she'd seen.

But what she had seen in those brown pools quickly vanished, replaced by glimmers of depravity that seemed to emanate from the bastard.

"Oh?" Reaver blinked at her, cocking a devilish eyebrow. "How long have you been standing there, my dear? You look so much like you're about to pass out. I must say, the _red _on your cheeks is simply ravishing!"

In embarrassment at being caught watching him sleep, (Hopefully he wasn't so observant or… insightful as to realize she was so close to assassinating him.) Naveena blushed even further, though the deep, wrinkled scowl on her face spoke volumes about her opinion on being called… ravishing.

"Go to Hell." That spoke even more volumes.

The hatred that oozed from every follicle of her being was only matched by the wantonness of her… _boss_.

Reaver whipped the Dragonstomper .48 from the holster on his thigh, pointing it directly at Naveena. The girl, in turn, tensed, biting the side of her tongue.

"Rule number one:" He mocked her, tilting his amused, pretty little head to the side ever-so-slightly. "Hold your tongue. There are… _much _better uses for it, my dear princess."

Naveena opened her pink lips to let out a witty and nasty retort, but the second a tiny, dull sound came out, she shut it, clenching her teeth angrily as she reminded herself that the man in front of her _was _pointing a pistol at her. As if please by her unexpected submission, the deviant smirked, a self-satisfying smirk that she wanted so much, to wipe off his damned face.

"_Now _then, your first order of… _buisness, _is _this."_

He stood, standing a little too close to Naveena for her comfort, causing her to step backwards abruptly, in a slightly desperate attempt to get away from him. Reaching over to the armchair, which was occupied by Reaver's accessories, the deviant picked up his fur-lined coat and handed it to Naveena, who took it with tentative fingers, cocking an eyebrow. His coat? What did she need his coat for?

Turning towards the fireplace which had nothing now, no smoldering embers, no fires, Reaver looked into the pit of ash with a wry expression, and a smile that danced mockingly across his lips. Naveena half-turned to him, her fingers tangled in his coat.

"Your coat?" She flirted with the idea of throwing it on the ground and attacking him. A stupid, stupid idea. She looked up at the small, expensive and hard trinkets that adorned the top of the hearth, continuing her sentence while entertaining thoughts of those simple weapons, "What in Avo's name am I supposed to do with your coat?"

At this, her fingers slipped through an inconspicuous hole in the sleeve of the coat. She blinked, dumbly, before a wave of recognition went over her face. She remembered that Ace had torn off part of Reaver's coat in an attempt to save his mistress.

Did he expect her to _sew _it back together? She didn't even know _how _to sew, let alone patch something together!

"I am _not _sewing your bloody coat, Reaver." She tossed it into the armchair behind her, a furious expression on her face. She was not going to be treated like some damned maid! "Can't you just go buy another one or something?"

"What would be the _fun _in that, my dear? Here, I can watch your fingers dance across a needle, watch them poke through fabric and thimble and just _imagine-"_

"I can't sew." She confessed, bluntly, in an attempt to get the man to just _shut up. _"So, unless you want me ruining your coat, why don't you go get that Aza or Aja or whatever her name is to sew it?"

Reaver looked at her, and, as if he were contemplating the idea his eyes glimmered with a sort of deviousness, a sort of knowing, that made Naveena regret her proposition. He smirked, those devious eyes that had glittered now crinkled in amusement, basking in a sort of mental hedonism that made Naveena shiver.

"Why don't you clean up these floors," He grabbed the cane from the armchair, tapping it on the ground in emphasis. "You _do _know how to do _that, _yes?"

Something boiled furiously in the pit of her stomach, and Naveena clenched her fists tightly, forcing her vehemence at this entire situation further down as the amoral man left, whistling some god-forsaken jovial tune as he took a jaunt to find the maid known as Ada. She tried to remind herself that this was all for the best, that it was to protect her friends and their secrets, and that it would all be over once Naveena got her fingers coiled around Reaver's pretty little neck.

As the seconds ticked by, with only her inside of Reaver's bedroom, Naveena found herself thinking back to that particular scene that had occurred only minutes ago. She found herself wondering, once more, of Sibyl, of the name that had poured out of Reaver's lips. There had been something within Reaver's voice that stopped her… something like… vulnerability? For a brief second, Naveena had felt as if she'd seen a part of Reaver exposed. It was… an anomaly she was sure she'd never see again or even would want to see again.

She scratched the back of her head, and hummed a lullaby she only barely recalled. She rocked back and forth on her heels, and waited as a minute began to stretch out. Naveena stood beside the empty, fireless hearth, and admired the exotic trinkets that she had noticed before. They were of expensive make, though Naveena doubted Reaver would have anything cheap in his house, and appeared to be made of a dark, mahogany-like wood. One sculpture was shaped in the form of a spire, a spire which oddly resembled a giant phallus…

The doors to the bedroom opened and closed, and Naveena turned from the sculptures to face the coming forms of Ada and Reaver. Ada carried a large, soap-filled bucket and rag, smiling a dimpled smile benignly at Naveena.

Naveena looked at Reaver with a look of sheer confusion. It wasn't… natural for him to just submit to Naveena's complaint and scruples about not being able to sew, especially if he didn't appear to gain anything from it and yet… the ex-princess was oddly happy about this act of listening. Though she would've liked to have sewn his coat into a tattered, destroyed mass, what would have possibly prevented Reaver from putting a bullet in her head?

She took the soapy bucket from Ada, and handed the dark-haired brunette the coat. Naveena bent down, her knees against the ground, and she began washing the floor, trembling at the indignity of it all. Ada sat in the comfortable armchair and began to sew.

It was only after a couple of minutes, with Naveena washing the floors in a circular, bored motion and Ada sewing the torn sleeve of Reaver's coat that the deviant sashayed over towards Ada, taking her wrist, stopping her from whatever she was doing. Naveena watched them from beneath the veil of her red bangs, her blue eyes flickering upwards to watch them.

And it was only when Reaver placed his lips firmly upon Ada's did Naveena realize Reaver's true intentions.

Naveena forced her gaze back down, the tips of her ears turning a bright red and she ignored the loud moan that was illicit from the back of Ada's throat, ignored or at least tried to, the groaning springs of Reaver's master bed as a body was thrown onto it. Her fingers dug themselves into the concaves of the sponge, and she bit her lips, wishing desperately that she were deaf, blind and dumb.

Her gaze roamed upwards again.

Reaver had Ada's wrists in his hands, his head tilted to one side as he implored Ada to let him in with his mouth. He sat on the edge of the bed, a bizarrely elegant figure, leaning over the maid, who was splayed across the bed like some plaything. She moaned again, fingers twitching, trying to force her hands up so that she could wrap her arms around Reaver's neck. Reaver broke the kiss, leaning into the curves of her neck, biting at it in a sensual, forceful way.

"Reaver!" Naveena forced herself to her feet, the sponge in hand. She accidentally tipped the bucket over, and the soapy water spilled everywhere, pooling at her feet.

He looked back at her, pulling away from Ada's pale neck. The maid let out a groan of disappointment and irritation. There was a wolfish smile displayed across his features, and Naveena, without thinking, threw the sponge at him and stormed out.

* * *

Naveena was on the bed in her room, looking out the window with feigned interest. She was planning, scheming, and it helped her to think if she stared out blankly at objects. The Millfields were dark with the coming night, and the noblemen and women walked calmly towards their homes, unaware or uncaring that many people in the nearby Silverpines and Bowerstone Market did not have the luxury to call a place home, nor a bed to sleep in.

She tried to ignore the obvious noises coming from the other room, noises signaling that carnal needs were being met, and watched as leaves floated quietly by.

The revolutionary thought of Elliot, and wondered if he worried over her. Her obviously cold reaction to realizing that Reaver had both her and the revolution in his palm had probably alienated her husband, a fact that stirred Naveena.

She schemed. She reminded herself that she needed to kill Reaver, to keep the secret of the Resistance's headquarters safe, at all costs. There were many ways she could go about this assassination. The man obviously slept, she could kill him in his sleep. She could poison his food, watch as he choked on a pleasure most could not even afford in Albion. Perhaps, if she had a mind to, she could seduce the man. Avo knows he would be vain enough to believe she had succumbed to his non-existent charms.

Her thoughts turned back to an unwanted subject. Her conscience. She tried to avoid hurting people, she truly did, but it was inevitable that eventually, she would kill someone. She had killed those mercenaries, had killed dozens of bandits, but she had never deliberately killed someone. Though Reaver obviously deserved death for what he'd done, Naveena's own unfortunate conscience demanded that she go through this… _punishment _for a week and perhaps he would let her go. But what would stop him from betraying her?

She fell backwards into the comfort of her bed, folded her arms behind her head and listened as the unfortunate sounds from Reaver's bedroom faded.

* * *

**AND DONE. Took forever to write. I blame school. And life. And procrastination.**

**Anyway, I will go into a long debate regarding things. One, as a princess who obviously had servants like Jasper to do things like get her clothes together for the morning or cook for the castle or clean the castle, I hardly think the princess would know how to do things like sew or even cook. So, I'm really just stating the facts.**

**Oh, and with Reaver. Although I think Reaver is an irredeemable asshole, and that's why I love him, I do think he regrets what he did with Oakvale, which by extension killed his love. Do I think he regrets everything else he's done? No. I don't think he regrets any of it. I find this one thing with Oakvale to be his singular vulnerability, and really the mention of it is important for later chapters. I did a bit of Shout Out here, as Sibyl is the name of a character from 'The Picture of Dorian Grey'.**

**Also, I am thinking about rewriting Chapter Two. I was not particularly happy with it, as were some readers, so I will be redoing it. Expect that to be up before Wednesday or way afterwards because I am going on vacation! :-D**

**Feedback is appreciated, as always.**


	4. The Spire

Avarice

Chapter 4: The Spire

_And how can we win…?_

_When fools can be kings…?_

_Don't waste your time…_

_Or time will waste you…_

_Muse – Knights of Cydonia_

_

* * *

_

She had a plan.

One would have called it a foolish, stupid and perhaps clichéd plan, but to Naveena it was a plan nonetheless. She hummed to herself as she cleaned out the rubbish from Reaver's party alongside several other servants, (Including that harlot, Ada, whom Naveena couldn't even look in the eye…) smiling ever so slightly to herself. The answer was so simple! She couldn't even believe that she hadn't thought of it the second she'd found herself in this manor, cleaning up Reaver's trash!

Stuffing a glass bottle of empty fizzy pop into a rubbish bag, Naveena thought about Ben, and the rest of the Revolution. She was supposed to meet Ben at the Castle, after the Masquerade, but Naveena had gotten herself caught up in this mess. Whatever Logan had to say, and Naveena highly doubted it was anything truly important, she had obviously missed it. Which was a terrible shame, but she was obviously a person unable to be in two places at once.

Naveena stretched, raising her arms high in the air, as if attempting to reach the high ceilings and admired the mansion for a bit. If one were to take away the stacked paintings, Reaver's Mansion would've had an elegant appeal to it. It was nothing like Bowerstone Castle, of course not, but Naveena had a dark feeling that the manor had a mausoleum of its own, and that the carpets and walls had once been stained with dripping rubies.

One of the maids, a girl younger than her by quite a bit, yelled at her to keep moving, flipping wild blonde hair over her shoulder, arguing that, "Master Reaver wants his mansion _spick_ and _span_!"

The revolutionary, who had never once enjoyed being told what to do, rolled her eyes and continued collecting bottles of fizzy pop, as well as the occasional bottle of liquor. Logan would have balked at the outlandish amount of alcohol, and would have been disturbed to see his law against booze flippantly ignored by an aristocrat like Reaver. Not to mention the fact that Reaver had been helping Logan slowly build his mountainous treasury.

She continued her cleaning well into the middle of the afternoon, before finding herself quietly skulking away from the rest of the housekeeping staff, shirking her duties but not really caring, as she was confident in her abilities to pull off her plan well.

One would call her an overconfident fluff-head, and argue that she should follow Murphy's Law and prepare for the very worst: an Epic Fail, but Naveena found herself uncaring and blissful. Indeed. For the first time since she'd been forced into this mess, she was happy.

There was a library, surprisingly enough, within the depths of the hedonistic estate. Books were stacked high to the walls, and though most of them were scarlet, gold-lettered biographies concerning Reaver, she found a few that seemed… interesting enough.

_The Pangs of Sunset… Famous Killers: Terrence Posture… The Grasping Avarice of Kings and Their Lackeys… Tyranny of Tyrants…_

She stopped, coming upon a strange, peculiar sight. Just between _The Grasping Avarice of Kings and Their Lackeys _and _Tyranny of Tyrants _was a squashed, dark-covered and thin-spined book. There was no title embellished on the spine, which was an anomaly among books, and Naveena found her curiosity getting the best of her. Was it a journal? A diary of some sort? She wrenched it out of the space between the two heavy books, tripping backwards a little at the amount of force it took to rip it out. She held the little black book with two, unsteady hands, realizing that a sanguine-colored title was swirled elegantly over the cover.

_Diary._

Naveena assumed that, maybe, it belonged to the housekeeping staff. The library certainly wasn't well-used, an observation gathered from the amount of dust that covered the Victorian armchairs and the cherry bookcases, and appeared to really only be for show, or collecting purposes. So it made sense that someone would hide their diary away in a place like this.

The diary itself appeared quite old, with tarnished, yellowing pages, as if it had been kept out in direct sunlight for too long. Naveena looked furtively around, checking to make sure she was alone. Though, morally, it was very wrong to look in someone's personal diary, there was something about it that… compelled her. Beckoned her.

Seeing that no one was around, and that no one would probably be around to see her transgression, Naveena cracked open the diary with slightly trembling fingers. The handwriting was neat, quite beautiful, and Naveena got the feeling that it was a girl's hand that wrote this.

"_This is my first night back since the… renovations. I must say, that chap in Rookridge has done a wonderful job. A small miracle, since he had recently lost three toes and two family members. But what was I to do? He wouldn't be persuaded to abandon the construction of some worthless temple. And his predecessor had simply the worst taste in furnishings!"_

The ex-princess crinkled her brow. Rookridge? There was no town, no village she knew of that was called Rookridge. And what was this about some chap who'd lost three toes? And renovations? On what? A house, perhaps? There seemed to be a certain flamboyancy expressed in the words, and Naveena took back her earlier assumption that the diary's author was a girl.

"_I was generous to let him live as long as I did. Now that awful scent of burnt wood and flesh has dissipated, I will throw a party. Penelope and Ursula will be my guests of honor. A shame Andrew perished in the fire."_

Naveena stopped.

She knew exactly who the author was. There was no one else who could… who would… Was that a tickle on the nape of her neck? Brushing against tufts of red hair?

"I'm sure that you've heard the old saying," Reaver placed his chin on her shoulder, peering over to look at the journal that Naveena held so delicately in her hands. "'Curiosity' is what killed the cat?"

Naveena froze, feeling the barrel of Reaver's Dragonstomper .48 being pressed against her temple. Her fingers trembled, and the journal in her hands, Reaver's journal, fell to the flagstone floor of the library with a loud, resolute thud. She didn't turn to face him, didn't turn to speak. Naveena stood there, a marble statue that couldn't move at all.

"I…" She started, but what could she really say? 'I apologize for looking into your diary, knowing that it was _someone's _private property'? That, was a most pathetic excuse. "I…"

Reaver looked at her through bored eyes, his pointed chin still resting on her shoulder, his prized pistol still held at her temple. He breathed against the contour of her cheek, and she spared a glance at him in the corner of her eyes.

"Oh, don't _bother _explaining yourself, my _dear." _ Reaver nipped at the lobe of her ear, a vicious nip, an angry bite and Naveena let out a furious hiss, her fists clenching at her sides. "Such a shame… you were a marvelous thing to behold, seems almost a _waste _to just kill you, don't you think?"

He gripped her shoulders, and turned Naveena around, pressing her against the bookcase. This frightened her, and Reaver's arms encaged her. The pistol was tucked right underneath her neck, and she could feel it there, against her pulse, a cold, cruel feeling that terrified Naveena. She had no weapons, no ways to fight Reaver…

And then, she had remembered the plan.

Her arms shot up, so suddenly, that there was an actual expression of _astonishment _that danced in the dark, depraved pools of Reaver's eyes. Naveena's fingers curled around the nape of his neck, tightened into the inky strands of thick hair, and she yanked the surprised ex-pirate forward. Soft, badly-chewed lips met silky ones, and Naveena found herself forcing her way into Reaver's mouth.

Reaver smiled, a twisted smile that Naveena could feel through the kiss, and he released his trapping position to bring a hand to Naveena's… assets. The revolutionary felt the unquenchable urge to kill him right then and there, but instead let her fingers twitch irritably. The other hand, which held the Dragonstomper .48 fell to Reaver's side, and the man himself pressed Naveena into the bookcase, moving a knee in between her legs.

Slowly, so that Reaver wouldn't know what she was doing, she cracked open her blue eyes and looked down at the pistol, moving her hands downward from the nape of the industrialist's neck. Reaver cocked his head a little, deepening the kiss, and Naveena found herself fighting the sudden desire to vomit. She pressed her hands against his chest, curling fingers into white fabric, and as the kiss went on, her hands went lower and lower.

She could feel Reaver's tongue toying with hers, and through the feelings of repugnance and antipathy there was a certain… feel-good emotion buried in the recesses of her stomach. It was something she had most certainly never felt with Elliot, or with any of her other lovers, and this was something… distressing.

It was a shame that Reaver would have to die.

Her arm slowly reached for the Dragonstomper . 48, the one that was held in Reaver's lax grip, and carefully, carefully she reached for it…

Naveena would have gotten it too, if hadn't been for the sudden opening of the door.

With a sound that was unsettlingly close to a gunshot, the doors were thrust open, banging harshly against the walls. Ada staggered in, her black hair tangled around her face and those beautiful eyes of hers wild with something that Naveena cannot fathom.

"Master Reaver," She breathed, her head bent. Ada hadn't yet seen the compromising position her master is in. The girl wrenched her head upwards, and her green eyes flickered with something. "The mansion!" She ignored Naveena and stepped towards Reaver, quickly, hurriedly. "It's-"

Ada fell to the floor quickly, her back arching backwards, and there was another sound, another sound which sounded so eerily like a gunshot. The beautiful girl's body crumpled to the floor, and blood oozed lazily onto the flagstones, painting them a deep crimson color. Naveena's eyes widened, and Reaver pulled away from her, looking completely unfazed. He was staring at Ada's lifeless body, and his head leisurely looked upwards.

One of Logan's soldiers stood in the doorway.

The man yelled, exclaiming that he had found them, acting as if he were completely ignorant of the fact that he'd just ended a life, and turned back towards them, his rifle clutched tightly in his hands.

Reaver raised his pistol, looked down the barrel, and shot. The industrialist certainly lived up to his name, as the bullet went right in between the soldier's eyes, and he fell backwards, his mouth gaping open in a contorted fashion. Several soldiers joined them, and though Reaver had sighed, irritably, he dispatched all of them immediately.

Without a word, Reaver grabbed Naveena's wrist, as if realizing for the first time that she was unarmed, and ran. Naveena hadn't expected Reaver to be a fast runner, she had thought him to be more of a lazy, hedonistic lout than anything else.

"It appears as though your brother has been sticking his nose in places where it shouldn't be," Reaver told her, shooting another soldier, holding on to her wrist tightly. "A pity, here I am, betrayed, when I was planning to turn you in from the start…"

He said this as if he were complaining about horrid weather, or protestors outside his factory.

"You…" Naveena started, glaring at the back of his head as they moved forward through the mansion. "You bastard! You were going to turn me in? And where are we going?"

"My, my… you truly are your mother's daughter. Though Sparrow was a little more… _spunky _when she delivered her angry rant at me. Alas, Que Sera Sera." He pointedly ignored her last question, pulling her forward.

Naveena sneered, though she was intrigued. Reaver spoke often as if he knew her mother personally. But Naveena felt she knew her mother well enough to know that she wouldn't cooperate with the likes of _filth _such as Reaver. The little she had heard of her mother, told Naveena that the old Hero Queen was not a woman to mess with, that she was prudent, just and well-mannered.

Oh, if only she _knew._

The revolutionary dug her heels in, and Reaver had to pull her harshly to get her moving again. She refused to be dragged around like a puppy on a leash.

"Where are we going?" She pressed, attempting to pull her wrist back as Reaver shot yet another soldier of the Elite Royal Guard. The man tightened his grip.

"You are almost, but not quite, as annoying as Sparrow as well." He commented, ignorant of the fact that he had just essentially insulted Naveena's mother in front of her. "As you know, I am quite fond of secret passages, always useful for escaping a scorned ex-lover."

He said nothing else, and the two waded in silence until they reached Reaver's bedroom. The bedroom was untouched, though the red and gold sheets were in a state of disarray. Reaver let go of Naveena's wrist, and walked towards the unlit fireplace. His dark eyes monitored the trinkets on top of the fireplace, and he reached towards one.

She recognized it as the sculpture of the spire. As Reaver's fingers graced the object, Naveena realized that she could use this opportunity to her advantage. Reaver wouldn't be expecting her to hit him, or anything like that. Naveena looked around, searching for something that could be used as a weapon.

There was nothing, and Naveena's fists clenched painfully at their sides.

Reaver pulled the spire towards him, and Naveena was surprised to discover that it was no ordinary _sculpture, _but a lever instead. The spire fell, and Reaver stepped back. The fireplace shuddered, and suddenly the area beneath the fireplace collapsed, giving way to a small hollowed out copse, with a grate in the middle of it.

The way out was clear.

* * *

Sorry for the long wait!

Remember the spire sculpture in the previous chapter? It had significance.

Feedback is appreciated.


	5. Defections

Avarice

Chapter 5: Defections

"_Marry Me," He said, through his rotten teeth, bad breath and then,_

"_Marry Me instead of that strapping young goatherd."_

_But when, I was in his bed and my father had sold me…_

_-Emilie Autumn "Marry Me"_

_

* * *

_

"I am _not _going down there."

If one were to compare the Princess of Albion to her mother, one would say that the greatest trait that the two of them shared, would be sheer, suicidal stubbornness. Reaver, who stood by the grate, a grate which led to their only possible escape route, smirked a devious and slightly dubious smirk upon realizing this. It occurred to him, suddenly, striking him sharply over the head, just how alike the two Heroes were.

Naveena had Sparrow's eyes; there was no doubt about that. Those twinkling, damning blue eyes that lightened when she was ecstatic and darkened when she had other things on her mind. They had the same nose as well, a nose which curved upwards slightly, and their faces were both aristocratic, pointed and yet soft.

Their attitudes were surprisingly parallel as well, and that indignant stubbornness seemed to run through the family.

Actually, no, it didn't just run. It _galloped. Waltzed. Paraded._

Naveena dug her heels doggedly into the ground, and the cracking of a gunshot sounded out, echoing somewhere in the manor, though the sound was loud enough to be close by. Naveena jumped, startled, and bit her bottom lip so harshly, that her teeth had cut into it a little. She bound her hands in her clothes, and looked back at Reaver with ferocious, yet frightened eyes.

A mocking smile danced on his lips as he grabbed onto the ladder, climbing down into the escape route. His voice, when he spoke, was tinged with mockery and snickers, "Well then, I leave you to the _mercy _of the King's Elite Guard. Tatty-bye!"

Mercy. What _mercy _did Logan's Elite Guard have? They'd sooner shoot the King than shield the man from a bullet if the pay was right. (And considering the rate taxes were at, that was likely to never happen.) They were corrupt, though necessary enough to satisfy Logan's paranoia. Naveena looked over her shoulder again, and the soldiers began banging on the doors to the bedroom, which had been barred closed. The wood splintered slightly, and Naveena shuddered.

It was now or never.

Between the Elite Guard, who she did not trust, or Reaver, who she also did not trust, Naveena was not completely sure what she could do. Inherently, she'd rather take her chances with the Elite Guard. They seemed a safer option than the decadent head of Reaver Industries.

However, was safety really worth giving up her revolution? Naveena could always run away again, but there was a nagging feeling that Logan wouldn't let her out of his sight. And who knows? Perhaps her damned brother had fallen so far from his sanity that he'd send her to an execution? Behind her, the doors to Reaver's bedroom splintered again, and it would be only minutes before they broke in.

She took in a deep breath, closed her lurid eyes, and exhaled.

Right. It was now, or never.

With slight hesitation, Naveena grabbed hold of the ladder and set herself down the grate. The bars of the ladder were rusty, and she gripped them harshly, with conviction, though her heart sunk horribly into the pit of her stomach. Why did she have to get herself involved in this? She felt _so _stupid. What would Elliot have said?

_Elliot. _It was there, with that single name that her heart truly, truly sank. If they were after her, were they after Elliot as well? Was he safe? He may have been trained in the art of swordplay, but Naveena and Walter knew full well that he lacked the capacity to be adept at it. Naveena sighed, trying to banish the thought of Elliot being hurt – or possibly worse… - from her mind.

Her feet touched the ground, and Naveena turned around, coming face-to-face with a long, seemingly endless tunnel. It was dark, but sconces lit the tunnel dimly, the light from the candles flickering slightly. Naveena could pick out a small, distant figure in the distance, though the top hat gave Reaver away. She struggled to catch up with him, jogging after him slightly.

She realized then that she was still unarmed, defenseless. She had no gauntlets at her beck and call, no gun or sword… it would be best to stick close to Reaver, though her antipathy for the industrialist greatly outweighed any sort of gratitude towards him, and the very thought of him protecting her seemed fantastical, or even delusional at best.

Hope was a driving motivation right now, despite the fact that her hope was dwindling slowly.

"I _knew _you couldn't stay away!" Reaver said, his dark, depraved eyes glimmering as she strode beside him. And, just like her mother had when they'd escaped Lucien all those years ago, Naveena shot him a dirty, filthy glare.

"Trust me," Poison seeped, dripped from her words. "I'm not here because of _you."_

"Ah, are you _sure? _That little, devilish kiss of yours said otherwise." Reaver's lips curled into a smirk, and his eyes did not glimmer. "What a _naughty _princess you are!"

Naveena looked pointedly away, crossing her arms over her chest, and curling her bare fingers into the cloth of her poofy sleeves. They walked like that for awhile, a pregnant silence pressed between them. Naveena tried to purposefully look away from Reaver, but every now and then, she shot him curious, though reproachful glances.

Was it wise to entrust this… bastard with her life? Trust and Reaver were not two words Naveena would have expected to be in the same sentence but… the question was there. She didn't trust Reaver, and she couldn't take the man at face value, not after he admitted to attempting to betray her. But… Logan was after Reaver as well, because the man had held Naveena in his manor without telling the King. There was no ulterior move to betray Naveena now, no _reason _to throw her to the Hobbes.

She glanced at him again, and this time, she _looked._

Reaver looked the same as he always did, with that insufferable smirk, those glittering brown eyes, and that curious little tattoo on his cheek. She wasn't quite sure _what _she was looking for. Perhaps answers buried within his face? Etched into his cheek, etched just like that odd tattoo?

Naveena was looking for a reason to trust him.

"Hmm…" He cocked his head to the side, those eyes of his twinkling with decadence once more. "Now, now, no need to play the _tease, _my dear. I _know _you're ravishing me with your eyes, but wouldn't you want something more… _hands-on?"_

He veered a little closer to her, and Naveena moved closer to the wall beside her. However, Reaver's reach was long, and he brushed his fingers along her neck. Naveena shivered, and grabbed his wrist, forcing it away from her.

The look she shot him was _icy._

"Not interested." Naveena lied. The thoughts, feelings of the faux pas kiss that they shared in the library wriggled into her mind, embroidering unwanted and frankly, traitorous desires into her mind.

Reaver, who had in past times held her at gunpoint if she spoke doggedly to him, simply quirked his lips. He let the tips of her fingers brush against her knuckles, and Naveena glared sharply at him. It was then, that the princess, the revolutionary, had decided that she should speak bluntly.

"Can I trust you?"

Four simple words. And yet, Reaver's eyes had widened, his smirk had faltered slightly, and though it was only for a split-second, Naveena had noticed it.

"No." Reaver replied, smoothly, his eyes not quite twinkling. They glinted with something else entirely. Malice, maybe? Contempt, for her question? "I'm _dangerous, _love, and it makes everything much more _delightful._"

He leaned into her again, attempting to catch her off guard with his velvety words, but Naveena was not impressed, nor deterred. She pushed past him, walking a little faster, letting her strides grow longer. How could she have been so foolish to even broach that question to Reaver? Of _course _she couldn't trust him! He was _Reaver. _The man who had all but enslaved Bowerstone Industrial, the man who whispered dirty imaginings into her ears, the man who'd lived lifetimes worth of hedonism. To trust him would be an idiotic, dumb and absolutely _stupid _thing to do.

Her trust would be sorely misplaced, if it was placed at all.

Naveena could feel Reaver's eyes boring holes into the back of her skull. Another weaker, stupider woman would have swooned at the chance of having the fop's undivided attention. But she was not the entirety of the female half of Albion. She knew better than to tread dangerous waters.

She knew better than to trust Reaver with her life.

Although she hated him slightly less than she had a few days ago, she was not content to gamble with the man. Nor was she content to kill him. She suspected that she may end up with a bullet embedded in her skull if she dared to try.

Reaver caught up with her strides, _'accidentally' _bumping his hand into the curve of her buttocks. Naveena had stiffened at the unwanted act of affection, and her hands balled up into barely constrained fists. It took every ounce of her willpower not to punch Reaver, it truly did, but somehow, through sheer will and discipline, she refrained from doing so.

An amazing feat, that was certain.

There was a small light in the distance, reflecting wanly upon the ground of the tunnel, casting Reaver's and Naveena's shadows upon the ground. Reaver's hand crawled up her spine again, landing delicately on her shoulder. Naveena turned around, raising a fist, unable to contain the urge to punch him anymore.

All it took was a split second for his hand to curl around her throat, and hold the Dragonstomper .48 under her chin. The back of her head smacked sharply against the wall of the tunnel, and dots danced rapidly across her vision.

"Got you, my little minx." He whispered, and Naveena could feel his breath tickle the base of her throat.

Naveena blinked away the vertigo from being manhandled, daring to look into Reaver's smirking face.

Indeed, he wasn't to be trusted.

"You…" She could see his face through a tunnel of clarity, and suddenly the details around him were sharper, clearer. His brown eyes, tinged with specks of green, were crinkled in false, feigned laughter. Reaver's smile was icy, thin, smirking as if he were the cat who'd caught the canary. It struck Naveena, suddenly, that the Elite Guard had not been after both her and Reaver, but had only come for _her. _"_You _sent Logan the message. _You_ let him know I was here!"

She struggled, futilely, but she had underestimated Reaver's personal strength. He held her there, firmly, against the wall of their escape route.

"Indeed, and I played the part of the Good Samaritan _beautifully, _don't you think?" He cocked his head to the side, tilted towards the light, and roughly pulled her away from the wall and towards him. Naveena's forehead bumped ungracefully against his chin. She tried to wrench her body away from, twisting her arms and preparing to use hand-to-hand force. Reaver tsked, and held both of her wrists tightly, placing the barrel of the Dragonstomper .48 under her chin.

"Now, now," He warned, and it was a subtle warning. "Don't _struggle, _princess, it's time you go back to the castle, where you _belong, _don't you think?"

"You bastard! You asshole!" She tried to elbow him in the chest, but his grip on her wrists was vice-like. How dare he? How dare he endanger her rebellion, her coup d'état! "Let go of me!"

She tried to gather up Will, but without the gauntlets, it was proving to be impossible. Naveena lifted her leg and attempted to kick him, but to no avail. Reaver was stronger than she was.

"It was _lovely _to have you walking around my Manor, doing my bidding," He place his chin on her shoulder, sighing against the shell of her ear. "And it will be such a _shame _to let you go, my dear little _minx._ But the _treasures _your brother has promised me for your return… It would be simply un-businesslike if I _refused."_

She hated him. Hated every velvety word, every sensual innuendo, every perfect feature on his face. Naveena despised it all.

Reaver led her towards the light of the tunnel, still holding her wrists, still keeping her at gunpoint. Her back was pressed against his chest, and the fur that lined his coat tickled Naveena's cheek every now and then. Naveena boiled inside. She needed to get out of this, needed to find an opening where she could escape.

She reminded herself that Reaver had perfect marksmanship, as well as excellent reflexes. No one that crossed Reaver had ever lived.

Not until now.

The tunnel led to a dirty alley, covered in fallen posters and the citizens' of Bowerstone Industrial's trash. Above her, Naveena could see the smoky plumes rising from the factories, and the deep gray thunderclouds that swirled overhead.

"_Ah, _Bowerstone Industrial, the crux of all the filth and debauchery residing in our fair Albion." Pronounced Reaver, haughtily, as if he were looking down upon a splotch of filth. And, technically, he was.

That, however, was beside the point.

Gunshots erupted from the less well-off part of Bowerstone, and Naveena stiffened, startled at the sound. There were a few screams, scattered amidst the sounds of fighting. Reaver tutted, and then quipped,

"Such a _ruckus _you've caused, my dear, for the Elite Guard to shoot everyone on sight."

"Shut up, Reaver. Will you please just _shut up?"_

Reaver chuckled, darkly, cocking an elegant eyebrow, "I don't believe you're in the right position to be making demands of _me, _my fair princess."

It was then that an unfortunate guard had found his way into the alley. Reaver and Naveena looked up, and they must have looked rather silly. With Reaver holding her wrists tightly in his grasp, and Naveena with her back pressed against his chest. The guard, blinked, as if dumbfounded by the sight and then took a step forward.

"Reaver! You are under arrest for High Treason against the King and his kingd-" A gunshot rang out, and as the guard lurched forward, mouth gaping in surprise, there stood the charming Ben Finn, pistol raised, bathed in dark splotches of blood.

Reaver immediately let go of Naveena's wrists and stepped over to examine the guard.

"Ah," Reaver murmured, a chuckle rising in the back of his throat. It was quite comical, really, to think that he would be betrayed by Logan. It was odd, really, how parallel events between now and fifty years ago were. "It appears our dear King has decided to betray me. A shame, I was looking forward to being regaled with treasures!"

Ben Finn took notice of Reaver, and cocked his pistol again, aiming it at the deviant's head. However, Reaver had taken notice of him as well, and raised the Dragonstomper .48, smiling at Ben Finn as if the two of them were sitting down to enjoy a good meal, and not having an Auroran Standoff in the middle of an alley.

"Naveena, _what _has Page gotten you into this time?" He breathed, heavily. He was noticeably out of breath, as if he'd been running everywhere.

"It's a really, really long story." Naveena replied, looking between Reaver and Ben.

"If you'd like to tell tales of your _conquests_, my dear revolutionary," Reaver looked at her with glittering dark eyes, savoring the idea of shooting this dubiously handsome soldier in front of him, as well as entertaining _other _thoughts about the scruffy Ben. "Then I shall happily take my leave. I have an urgent _appointment _to make with our dear King."

"No, you don't," Naveena announced, with the same forcefulness and assertiveness as her mother before her. "You've an appointment with _me."_

"What's your order, princess?" Ben asked, he seemed to take delight in mouthing off to Reaver, in holding something over the man's head. "'Fraid Reaver won't be as easy to shoot as Hollow Men."

Reaver laughed now, a harsh, cold laugh that sent shivers down Naveena's spine.

"Yes, yes, _regale _us with your orders, _Your_ _Majesty." _He said, his tone a culmination of mockery and amusement. His grip on the Dragonstomper .48 was loose.

Naveena ignored him, "Ben, what's happened since I was gone?"

Ben flinched, suddenly, as if Naveena had struck him sharply across the face. When he replied, his voice was but a mere whisper, barely audible above the sounds of gunshots and screams,

"Swiftie's dead. The King had him executed." Ben blinked away stinging tears. "He was looking for allies, tried to get some of the other soldiers to help us but one of them snitched. He left us a message."

Naveena looked away, saddened over Captain Swift's death, but looked back up, eager to hear the message. Through all this, Reaver remained surprisingly quiet, though he was looking at Ben quietly, waiting to see if the soldier would shoot him.

"You will find allies in Aurora."

"_Wonderful," _Reaver drawled, putting the Dragonstomper .48 away, back in its holster. He turned away from Ben, to face Naveena, a haughty look in his eyes. "Does this mean we will be gallivanting in the desert? Aurora is full of such _uninhibited _people, it would be a shame if I have to stay _behind."_

Naveena and Ben blinked at him, as if he'd said something incredibly silly or impossible. Reaver took the brim of his hat and bowed, looking up at the princess with a dashing smile, the one that made whores weak in the knees and more elegant women giggle with delight.

"I am at your service, my _Queen." _

_

* * *

_

**D: It's been a month since I updated! D: D:**

**Sorry for the long wait! Family commitments over Christmas, and blah blah blah.**

**Feedback is appreciated.**


	6. Her Mother's Daughter

Avarice

Chapter 6: Her Mother's Daughter

_Lollipop…_

_Must mistake me for a sucker,_

_To think that I would fall victim to another?_

_-"Womanizer" Lily Allen_

_

* * *

_

Reaver pulled himself back to full height, placing that top hat of his back upon his head, tipping the brim slightly forward in a dubious manner. He was looking at Naveena with bright, twinkling eyes, eyes that Naveena had seen glimmer with depravity and darken with debauchery. The industrialist was bent slightly at the hip, the tips of his fingers tapping against the holster strapped to his thigh, as if he was itching to use his pistol once again.

"And you're expecting me to _trust _you?" She let out a hiss, aching for her own pistol, her own weapons so she could slice that smile off of Reaver's lips. "After you admitted to betraying me not just _once, _but _twice."_

"Ah, but I nearly betrayed your mother _thrice. _Certainly that's an _improvement?" _He waved this accusation off with a gloved hand, cocking a barely visible, but certainly elegant eyebrow.

Ben moved forward, standing beside Reaver. (And looking exceptionally uncomfortable there.) He shot Reaver an incredibly venomous sideways glance,

"He also nearly killed you _and _Page, don't forget about that." Ben, looking away from Reaver and straight at Naveena. "And he's _evil."_

"You do realize that I am standing right here? Within _point blank range_, I might add." Reaver replied, rolling his r's, his smile quirking at the corners as if bemused by Ben. He eyed the soldier with an emotion that Naveena couldn't quite tell. It reminded her of someone eyeing the best kind of meat to cook.

"Trust me Ben, I haven't forgotten." Naveena, feeling decidedly civil at the moment. She felt chilled by the screams in Bowerstone Industrial, by the sounds of gunshots and the smell of death. Diplomacy, something Sparrow had always been lacking in, came to Naveena naturally at the moment, more as a defense mechanism, to make sure everyone kept their cool.

"_Your Majesty," _Reaver stressed the words, dipping his head in a manner which defined his cool arrogance, and his lack of proper respect for the woman standing in front of him. "If I may be so _bold, _I would suggest leaving this place quickly. Mind you, I'm not content to stand around in the middle of a _warzone, _with others of… lackluster talent." He glanced at Ben, who mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

Naveena pushed past the two men, and bent down to inspect the body of the dead guard. The rifle was an unfortunate piece of equipment, as Naveena had always preferred pistols, but it would have to do until she could get her hands back on her own weapons. The sword that had been strapped to the man's side looked similar to a cutlass, and again, Naveena wished that she could have the familiarity of her hammer.

They would have to do.

Strapping the sword to her side and placing the pistol in the holster attached to her hip, Naveena turned to Ben, inquiring,

"Did you get a boat?"

Ben nodded, sending the revolutionary a charming, albeit weary smile, "Yes. Walter and Page are making sure the rest of Logan's fleet doesn't follow us."

"_Wonderful," _Sarcasm poured from Reaver's mouth. "And I'm sure they'll succeed most admirably. Now let's get going, shall we?"

"We need to go through the sewers, to the back alleys. Industrial's crawling with soldiers, ever since they found out you were around," Ben shivered, closing his eyes, wincing in pain once more. "Logan put out a shoot-on-sight order. They're tearing Bowerstone, and the Millfields apart, looking for you, princess."

Naveena tried not to let the pain of realizing that _she _was the cause of all this death show on her face. That the dead bodies that no doubt littered Industrial and the Millfields were her fault, and hers alone. She once again admonished her stupidity. How could she be so stupid as to accept Benjamina's Quest? This was she got for trying to rack up Guild Seals, and doing so in a dreadfully idiotic manner. She should've left the Manor the second she saw Reaver's partygoers, should've crawled right back out that window and returned to her home in Bowerstone, with Elliot.

None of this would have ever happened. She wouldn't have tried to kill Reaver out of anger at him knowing the location of the Bowerstone Resistance, she wouldn't have shared a false kiss with him in an attempt to distract him, and she wouldn't have been forced to go through Reaver's little escape route and be forced to accept his help. (Help wasn't quite the right word…)

"And _just _when I'd had my boots cleaned." Reaver's voice stroked her out of her reverie, and she turned to look at him. He looked bored, incredibly so, and was watching Naveena with those beautiful eyes of his. "Tut, tut, my dear, I expect to be greatly… _reimbursed _for this, later."

"Will a punch in the face suffice?" She retorted, flaring up at the subtle insinuation. She walked up to him, jabbing a finger into his face, fully aware of Ben's blue-eyed gaze on both of them. "Another word out of you, Reaver, and I won't _hesitate _to throw you overboard when we get on that ship."

"_Compris." _He replied, chuckling darkly, his smirk widening. Oh yes, this girl was certainly her mother's daughter. "Understood." He translated, lowering his voice to a mere whisper. Though Naveena would never admit it, not to his face or even to herself, the whisper had sent satisfying chills down her spine.

His cheeks twisted wolfishly, and that blasted tattoo on his cheek was crinkled from the man's sheer _amusement. _Naveena supposed she looked rather stupid, threatening him when he'd so _gladly _offered his help, if only to save his own skin.

"I know the way," Ben offered, stepping between Reaver and Naveena, as if he'd been expecting the two to come to blows. "And I'm itching to shoot something, anyway."

* * *

As they found their way into the sewers, Naveena tried to ignore Reaver, heartily and truly she had wanted to ignore the bastard for all that it was worth, but she found herself looking up at the man, admiring the back of his head. (He had discarded the top hat a few minutes ago, exclaiming that he could always buy another.) She wasn't sure quite what drew her to him. Any sane woman would not find the man pleasing, or charming, but every red-blooded woman would have found him incredibly beautiful.

His hair reminded Naveena of silk threads, and the tendrils of his inky hair fell perfectly around his head, as if it had been treated to hours upon hours of styling. Reaver's shoulders were broad, angular around the edges, and his arms were long.

As were his fingers.

Naveena watched as he tapped the holster of his Dragonstomper .48 with long, straight fingers. Images, very unwanted, dirty, and cluttered images, spread themselves across the forefront of her mind. Shutting her eyes tightly, and suppressing an irritated groan, she shook her head wildly, shoving those visions, hopes from her mind.

She tried to hate him, fully, exceptionally, and found that she could not do so.

It wasn't fair. Someone so cruel, so hateful, did not deserve to look the part of an Adonis.

He should have horns sticking out of his head, should have pockmarks stretched across the expanse of his cheeks, should smell of dirt and death and brimstone.

"We have to get to the far end of the dock, so it's probably not best to shoot until we have to." Ben explained, as the trio found their way through the mouth of the sewer, under a raised gate.

Reaver tsked, "What fun is in _that? _These lovely little guardsmen ransacked my home, they deserve nothing less than a bullet between the eyes if you ask me."

"No one asked you." Ben retorted, glaring at the foppish man behind him. Naveena stepped forward, putting a hand on Ben's shoulder.

"Ben," She warned, however her gaze was fully on Reaver, and the deviant's gaze was settled on her's. "I know you're upset about Captain Swift, but we're all on the same side. We," She stressed the word, placing her other hand on her hip. "Need to get along if we're going to pull through."

The two men watched each other. Reaver's deep brown eyes were piqued with interest, whereas Ben's baby blues were cast in a look of anger and disgust. Asking Reaver to get along with any of her allies would be an impossible mission, as all her allies held varying ranges of hate for those who'd been associated with Logan or had helped him in his reign of terror, and Reaver probably felt the same dislike for them. He was a man who associated with those of a higher class, not Logan's cast-offs and oppressed subjects.

"Shake hands." Naveena said, plainly. Both of them looked at her as if she were crazy and had turned into a giant, fire-breathing chicken right before their eyes. She cocked an eyebrow, and bit the corner of her lips, a bad habit that resulted in eternally cracked lips. "You heard me. If we can't trust each other with watching the other's back, then we're not going to succeed in this coup d'état. Now shake."

"We can't trust him," Ben pointed out, his blond eyebrows furrowing together. He was poignant. "You said yourself that we can't trust him!"

"Reaver," Naveena addressed the damned Adonis. He smiled wolfishly, flashing straight teeth. "I'm going to say right now, that I don't like you. But I trust you well enough to watch me and Ben's back, if only because it'll save your own damned skin. You wouldn't have offered your help if you didn't think this would benefit you in some way, and I know that."

"Ah," Reaver pursed his lips, his eyes snapping from Ben back to the princess. "You know me too well, _mon cherie."_

"And Ben," She turned to the blond in question. "All I have to ask of you is that you'll be tolerable towards Reaver, please. I don't want any conflicts to occur while we're in the middle of this revolution. All that matters, right now, is that we depose of Logan. We have to save Albion, and something as petty as hate needs to wait until _after _that."

Ben bowed his head, patches of color rising to his cheeks, "Alright. But I don't like it. He tried to murder you and Page in cold blood."

"You really are quite the _diplomat, _my dear. You must be-"

"If you finish that sentence, Reaver, I swear on my mother's grave that your head will be rolling around on this street." She fixed the deviant with a glare that would have made any lesser man quiver in his boots. But Reaver simply laughed, a high, irritating laugh.

"Now, shake hands." Naveena stated, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ben and Reaver eyed themselves once more, like two men cataloging the other's weaknesses before a duel, and slowly, Ben extended his hand, his fingers tense and slightly curled, as if prepared to ball into a fist and punch the growing smirk off of Reaver's lips. Reaver sniffed, distastefully, before clasping Ben's hand with his own. Their grasps were tense, tight, as if both of them were attempting to crush the other's hand.

Naveena rolled her eyes.

"Good, now let's go."

The trio found their way up the small staircase that led towards the docks, with Ben at the lead. He held out an arm, peering over a corner, stopping Reaver and Naveena.

"There's a guard." Ben looked behind him, at Naveena. "Let me handle the talking."

"You've got an idea?" Naveena asked. She had the frank feeling that that was a stupid question.

"Yep." Ben moved forward, and Reaver tutted quietly to himself, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with the princess as they trailed behind Ben. Ben Finn moved purposefully forward, and the guard that stood by the gates straightened a little.

"Halt. Only Royal Gua- Master Reaver?" The guard blinked in surprise upon seeing the deviant waltz up to him. But, his expression soon turned to a hateful, violent one. "You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit High Treason agai-"

Reaver quickly withdrew the Dragonstomper .48 and shot the guard, hitting him perfectly between the eyes. Naveena and Ben watched as he sluggishly fell to the ground, as dead as dead could be, shuffling off the mortal coil.

"Do people do this regularly? You'd think they'd learn after a few shots in the face." Ben commented, cocking an eyebrow.

"I find most guards to be rather dim-witted in the sense that they knowingly attack Heroes, without even a small modicum of decent equipment." The deviant replied, shrugging, waving the rather beautifully engraved weapon lazily in the air. "Alas, these guards are nothing more than simple brutes picked off the streets, one shouldn't expect anything more than a scrap of intelligence from them."

"You two realize we have bigger problems right now? Like the squad of Royal Guard headed our way?" Naveena intervened, kicking the gate open. And, true to her word, in came eight men, all dressed in the royal purple and stylish helmets of the Royal Guard. Naveena unsheathed the guard-issued sword from the belt on her hip, whipping it forward, cutting across the nearest guard's chest. The flanging of steel upon steel rang in the air, growing in crescendo.

Reaver reloaded his pistol, and aimed, his shots spectacularly well-aimed and precise. One guard slunk to the floor as one of the man's well-aimed shots got him right in the cheek. He reloaded again, the bullets passing over his palm quickly.

The devilishly handsome soldier who went by the name of Ben Finn dodged an explosive shot from one of the guards' rifles, and met another guard's sword with his own, pushing the bloke away with an angry growl. A fireball was slung that way, and the guard met a fiery fate, screaming as he fell to the ground. Another shot rang out, this one from Reaver, and the rifle-bearing guard was quickly killed.

Naveena ran a quick flourish through the last guard, weaving her sword upwards and bringing it down wildly upon the guard's head. He fell backwards into a pool of his fellows' blood.

"We'll have to cut through the warehouse!"

The three found themselves inside of the warehouse. It was rather spacious, and the area was strewn with crates. However, upon entering the warehouse they also found themselves walking into a rather precarious firefight. Naveena took cover behind a few of the crates with Reaver, and withdrew the rifle. She aimed for one of the guards, fired, and watched as the bullet ricocheted off the helmet. She ducked quickly underneath, as a bullet found itself into her cover, exploding a corner of the crate and revealing pounds upon pounds of apples, which scattered everywhere, rolling to and fro.

Ben vaulted his own cover and headed into a swath of guards, flaying them with his own sword. He provided an excellent distraction for Reaver and Naveena, and the two went about picking off guards from afar. Naveena aimed for one of the explosive barrels as Reaver picked off a guard that was about to stab Ben from behind, and shot. The barrel exploded, the sound ringing in her ears loudly. Ben yelled his protest, caught in the explosion and flown backwards into a crate.

"Excellent shot, my princess." Reaver commented, wryly moving up from behind the crates, showing his approval towards Ben's predicament. Naveena moved over to help the soldier up, extending her hand. Ben took it, and the Heroine pulled him up.

"Next time, try shooting the barrels when I'm not so close, alright?" Ben groaned, stretching. He bent over to pick up his sword, which had been wrenched from his grasp when he was thrown into the crates. The soldier flexed his fingers.

"We're going to have to fight our way through, so be ready." Naveena jerked her head to Ben, and then to Reaver, before heading up the rickety wooden staircase. The two men followed her, Reaver tutting quietly to himself and Ben rolling his sore shoulders.

They continued on, towards the docks.

* * *

The alleyway towards the docks, which was covered in decisive amounts of propaganda, led to a small corner with a brick fence and a single crane ahead. When the ground beneath the trio began to rumble, they had stopped suddenly, and watched, in amazement and horror, as the crane ahead of them exploded, before falling roughly into the ground. The sound was loud and irrevocable, and similar to the noise of a thousand buildings all crashing upon one another simultaneously.

"Walter and Page." Ben concluded, drawing forward, his eyes dancing at the sight. "Looks like they're giving Logan's fleet a good show."

"Yes, quite, I suppose the destruction of Industrial's cranes was very necessary indeed. Those cost me a pretty penny, Your Majesty, I do hope you know." Reaver sighed, shrugging. It was no skin off his teeth, really. He could afford to build thousands more with the gold he made every day.

In the water, floating like dark sentinels, whose masts were high in the air and cast shadows across the moon like prison bars, Logan's fleet began to combust, sinking slowly into the shadowy waters below. It was a satisfying sight, to see his army taken down a notch, but the three of them weren't here to stare at the picturesque scenery.

"Wow, that should keep the bastards occupied." Ben turned and ran quickly. Naveena followed after him as did Reaver, though with obvious reluctance.

They ran headlong into another squad. Naveena, ran straight into one of the guards, and bent downwards, doing a cartwheel before springing upwards and placing the bastard's head between her knees and cracking his neck. The two guards surrounding her did a quick step back, and the one on her left met an unfortunate fate at the end of Ben Finn's sword. Ben plunged his sword into the spine of the bloke, and shouldered the body harshly, where it crumpled to his feet, letting out a final death rattle.

Reaver lazily picked off the last guard, getting an easy shot right between the eyes. He whistled a jaunty tune to himself, reloading his pistol as the next squad came lumbering towards them. Naveena closed her eyes, and summoned the Will at her disposal, trusting Ben and Reaver to keep the Royal Guard off her as she charged it up.

When the twin fireballs were at her disposal, she sent it blasting forwards, and two guards were caught in a vortex of flame and hurricane. Reaver, seeing this as a lovely opportunity to test his skill with twisting objects, dispatched both of them, and their bodies were sent flying over the brick fence, deep into dirty, unsafe waters.

A third guard headed towards Ben, and swung his cutlass harshly at him. It struck, cutting him across the shoulder, spraying droplets of blood across the ground. Ben hissed, swung his entire body around and brought the sword clashing sharply against the guard's hip. The guard was flung sideways, staggering, but caught his footing. Naveena ran past Ben, and with a single swipe, knocked the guard over. She snatched the rifle off her back, and aimed, killing the guard instantly.

With all the guards killed, Naveena moved to Ben, examining his shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

"It's just a flesh wound, takes more than that to kill Ben Finn, princess." He grinned, a toothy grin.

Reaver yawned, lightly, "I think I may just become ill."

The three of them turned as the doors were thrown open. Suddenly, a wild ball of black and white fur flew towards Naveena, knocking her over. With a loud _oomph, _the girl fell on her back, and the ball began to lick her face. She laughed, tugging at the thing's royal velvet collar, running her fingertips over the gold embroidered _Ace._

"Ace," Ace moved off of her, barking as his mistress breathed out his name. She scratched his ears, grinning at her loyal companion, cooing over him. "What a good boy you are!"

"Walter!" Ben exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. "What kept ya!"

Naveena moved from her dog, and watched as the grizzled old man she had come to know as her father figure stepped forward. Sir Walter Beck looked from Ben, to Naveena (And here his eyes softened a bit.) and then, finally, they landed on Reaver.

"I'd almost thought the worst when I heard you were in Reaver's Manor again." Walter said, tearing his eyes reluctantly away from Reaver to look at the princess. He seemed to take her in, and for a second, Naveena wondered if he thought she had been dead. "It's good to see that you're alive."

"Believe me; I'm just as surprised as you are." Naveena nodded, smiling at her mentor.

"Now, did you _really _think I would kill you?" Reaver looked at her, a hand on his hip, cocking an eyebrow. "I always keep in mind the _value_ of my investments. And you're worth much more to me, alive and well and all those lovely little words."

"Now you listen here you damned fruit-"Walter started, pointing at Reaver. But Naveena cut Walter off, raising her hand.

"Walter. He's on our side now, Logan's after him as well."

Walter stopped, his upper lip curled, his moustache bristling. He watched Reaver with heavy amounts of distrust stirring under those gray eyes of his. And for a second, he seemed conflicted, looking from Naveena to the usually top hat wearing man.

"Fine. We need to get going, they're going to be following us after all." He moved forward, and there was a single portion of the fleet that had been untouched by the destruction in Industrial. Reaver looked at Naveena, his brown eyes lighting up in sheer rapture, before heading forward, the white coattails of his coat billowing out behind him. Ben patted her shoulder, giving her a reassuring smile, and Ace nudged her leg.

For a brisk moment, Naveena thought of Elliot as she scratched her companion's black ears.

"_This is going to be a long journey."_

She boarded the ship, and they set sail, headed for Aurora.

* * *

Walter pulled her to the top of the ship, and the two stood there, leaning on the balcony, looking out at the seemingly endless ocean. The moon, as pale and unearthly as a statue carved from marble, seemed wrinkled against the surface. Naveena's stomach tossed as the boat rocked from side-to-side. She had never been very good on boats, and had borderline seasickness. Lucky for her, she never quite had the urge to vomit that much aboard ships.

"I'm sorry about not meeting with Ben at the Castle. I got caught up with… other matters." She said, wringing her wrists. Walter chuckled, shooting her a quick look askance,

"You're alive, which is more than I can say for most people who find themselves alone with Reaver." Walter looked down at the surface of the water, his eyes darkening slightly at the mention of their ally-in-name-only. "Swift was a good friend to Ben, and to all of us, however. And to hear that you were missing… in Reaver's Manor… you can imagine what that did to us."

It was so like Walter, to deliver an encouraging and warming sentence, and then follow it up with a well-deserved lecture. He and Jasper were alike in that regard, funnily enough. They had always enjoyed giving well-meaning advice to the princess, and sometimes doing so in a humorous manner.

"Is Elliot alright?" The question came out in a whisper, and Naveena felt her body shake slightly when she spoke it. She worried for him, she truly did but… some doubts about their marriage had been planted in Naveena's head, and were growing rapidly.

It was all Reaver's fault, she supposed.

"The lad's fine. For some reason he thought you were killing Balverines in the Silverpines." At this, Walter fixed her with a piercing look. "I'm not going to ask about that."

"Good." Her heart sank horribly. Yawning, Naveena stretched her arms high above her head. "I'm going to sleep. Goodnight, Walter."

As she turned to walk away, Walter stopped her with a single sentence,

"Be careful with Reaver, Naveena. The Hero Queen didn't trust him, and neither do I."

* * *

**DAMN WRITING ACTIONS SCENES AJFSOAJIOFSANHJFLAS. :-P**

**Also, I think I need to work on writing Walter. He is a really, oddly, hard character to write. Damn it. I have decided that I now officially love writing Reaver. Douchiness is fun~! :-D Trying to replicate the greatness known as Lionhead's character writing is not so fun~!**

**Feedback is appreciated, as always. Actually, it's more than appreciated. *WINK WINK***


	7. Sleeping Beauty

Avarice

Chapter 7: Sleeping Beauty

_Who cares if you disagree?_

_You are not me!_

_Who made you King of anything?_

"_King of Anything" – Sara Barielles_

_

* * *

_

Naveena lay awake, one arm soundly above her head, the other laid lazily across the middle of her stomach. She was abuzz with energy, unable to sleep, though the ship swayed gently, gently enough to try and lure her into a deep sleep. Her energy was the culmination of many things. She was excited about the trip to Aurora, anxious about the fact that Reaver had dug his devious claws into her rebellion and was now an ally and terrified of the fact that soon, very soon, she would be Queen.

How could she sleep, with so many thoughts swimming through her mind? Ace, who slept at her bedside, snuffled softly in his sleep, and Naveena scratched at his ears, moving her arm from her stomach. She wanted to do something other than laying in this bed, and so, sighing softly, she swung her legs over the side of bed, untangling herself from the sheets and stood up.

Ace lifted his head, whimpering plaintively, looking at his mistress with those dark eyes of his.

"I'll be back boy," She told him, slipping on a pale blue robe over her nightgown. "Just going out, okay?"

The room she had been given was bare, and given that it had been a captain's room, Naveena was unwilling to see what her compatriots were sleeping in. It held an air of once being grand, though with the budget cuts Logan had made to anything regarding the military, it had no doubt been stripped of grander furnishings. Logan's avarice bewildered Naveena; to think that he, someone who had once been so forthcoming towards the safety of Albion to endanger their security… frankly, it frightened Naveena just the tiniest bit.

She sighed again, pushing back memories of simpler times, before her brother had become a tyrant, before their mother had died of sudden illness, and before she had been handed the burden of building a revolution.

One thing she had always done, back when she lived in the Castle, was go outside, and explore. Naveena had always been restless in that stone prison, despite the luxurious furniture and food, and a servant to answer to her every beck and call, and she had been plagued with insomnia, as her mother had before her. She would always head out at night, sit around in the garden, and admire its eeriness in the darkness. Once in a blue moon she would fall asleep there, lured by the calm and serenity, and awaken to one of Jasper's lectures.

"_Such royal bearing, indeed…"_

Letting the smallest ghost of a smile rise to her lips, Naveena headed down the hall, through the ship as it rocked back and forth smoothly. Walter's snores were audible through the door of his room, and Naveena had a feeling that Ben was likely asleep; she didn't have him pegged for a night owl. Reaver was, probably asleep. Hopefully he hadn't sniffed out a bottle of liquor from the kitchens of the ship, he was no doubt _itching _from a lack of things to satiate his hedonistic, perhaps deviant tastes.

The cold air of outside nipped at her cheeks, stinging. She breathed in the freezing air, as her bathrobe whipped around her wildly, drawn by the winds like flags. Her bare feet felt frozen against the damp wood, sealed there by some icy force.

It took her a few moments to realize that she was not alone.

Reaver leaned forward, against the balcony of the ship, gloveless and coatless, his face cast into what seemed like a scowl. To see the man without his permanent smirk was strange enough, but to feel the melancholy that seemed to _surge _from him… it poured off of him in waves, pulsing.

Naveena took in a sharp breath, feeling as though she'd seen something she shouldn't have seen, and with rising regret, she stepped towards him, her feet slapping loudly against the ground. The murky waters splashed heavily against the side of the ship, a loud and nearly lyrical sound. She put on arm on the balcony, and Reaver's onyx eyes snapped to her, his fingers rushing to the holster on his thigh, stopping only when he realized that it was her.

"Can't sleep?" Her voice came out weak, tired. Reaver, as though he found her question funny or bemusing in some way, chuckled. He stood to full height, turning towards Naveena, away from the shadowy waters below.

"My dear, I find myself _dreadfully _divested of wine. A simple chalice would suffice to put me to sleep but _alas… _I have no bedfellows or liquor to quench such _debilitating_ desires…" Taking a step forward, admiring the cut of Naveena's nightgown and the ample amount of cleavage visible, Reaver continued, his voice still like velvet, and still as infuriating, "Perhaps you, my love, would like to improve my _dire_ situation?"

Naveena, her cobalt eyes narrowing, her fingers digging into the intricate designs of the balcony, hissed back, "Back off, Reaver. I'm already tempted enough to throw you off this damn ship."

"Ah, my sweet little kitten, you've threatened me with that before. And you can most certainly _attempt _to throw me off this ship; I doubt that you will succeed." He raised a hand, tracing the base of Naveena's neck. The revolutionary clenched her jaw, and Reaver moved the other hand to pry her fingers from the balcony.

"Let go of me. I've had enough of your stupid games and tricks."

Still, he did not listen, taking her hand in his own, moving the hand he'd had at her collar bone to her waist, giving that part of her body a delightful little squeeze. Naveena tried to move her hand, to slap him, but he held her there tightly, the warden of their own little prison.

"Dance with me, my minx, and perhaps I will."

Naveena looked into his eyes. She still was unable to decipher their exact color, and even in the moonlight, his eyes appeared onyx, flecked with bits of emerald. These were the eyes of a deceiver, of a devil dressed all in white. She dug her fingers into the back of his hand, moving the other to his shoulder. Oh, how easy it would seem to strangle him, and oh, how much she wanted to do so.

"The only dance you have in mind, Reaver, is the horizontal tango."

Reaver chuckled, pulling her diagonally, like a puppeteer to a marionette. His chuckle was dark, and yet sing-song, as if he found some humor in her cynical, true, comment. He danced with her, light on his feet, leading Naveena along.

"That I do, my dear, that I do." He dipped her downwards, admiring the curve of her bosom, the bend of her back, and she admired his ability to blatantly act like a pervert and get away with it. "But wouldn't you enjoy such a thing?"

"Perhaps with a frog," Naveena hissed, smartly, as Reaver pulled her back up. "But certainly not with you."

It was a lie, though one laced with hate. She could deny all she wanted, but the man standing in front of her was beautiful nonetheless, and the lust she held for him was empty, hollow. She hated him. Love, was out of the question.

"Ah, such a viperous mouth you have," Reaver jerked her forward, suddenly, her breasts smashing against his chest. "Just like your lovely mother, our dear Queen Sparrow." He said the last part quietly, his tone acidulous, a smirk growing across his lips.

"Don't talk about her," Retorted Naveena, her voice as thin as ice. "You didn't know her."

"Didn't I? No, I suppose your dear old mentor wouldn't have regaled you with such tales as that of the Hero of Skill," Reaver held her tightly against him, moving in quick, soft steps. They danced quickly, and for a second it seemed as if the ship weren't there, and that it was just the two of them, standing there. "Forget the old wizard and the Amazon, my dear, they are _humdrum_ compared to a Pirate King."

"Any story with _you _in it is bound to be a horrid one." Naveena looked at him with frozen eyes, and he gave her hip another squeeze.

"A horrid tale of delicious conquests and wonderful scraps, my dear. Nothing less than that."

In one, grandiose motion, he twirled her around, and brushed his lips against her knuckles, smiling at the princess as though she hadn't thrown such poisonous insults at him. Naveena blushed horribly, pushing down the urge to smack him in the face.

"Thank you for the wonderful dance, my dear," He smirked down at her, eyes glinting like distant stars, inky hair tousled slightly by the winds. "Perhaps one day I shall tell you the tale of the Pirate King. I consider such things… pillow talk."

"Then it's a shame that I will never hear it." Naveena looked at him coldly, her eyes glittering with the same iciness that was present in the air around them. Reaver laughed, moving past her, leaving her there upon the ship.

There was a sudden amount of guilt that wrecked her conscience. She thought of Elliot, and the time they had spent together, both in bed and out. He loved her, a lot. And Naveena had thought she held the same desire, the same drive as him. She had convinced him to leave Linda. Would she have done so had she realized just what their life would be like later on? Her thoughts turned to Reaver, and the kiss they had shared in the library, the dance that they had just done together. There was passion there, something different than what she had with Elliot. Something more… whimsical, lustful… greedy and full of avarice.

Naveena groaned, and hated Reaver, wished all sorts of horrible things upon him. She didn't need these complications, didn't _want _them.

She returned to her room ten minutes later, uncomfortably comfortable in her bed, and with her wracking thoughts.

* * *

The road ahead of her coiled in bends that were reminiscent of a snake, an adder. The air around the road was foggy and light gray, covered in mist that hid the false castle ahead from view unless one was directly in front of it. At every few bends or so, there was a thick iron gate, though most of them had been opened, due to the continuation of the revolution. This supernatural area was a place that Naveena had gotten used to, was a place she was now intimately familiar with, thanks to her Hero blood.

Never before had she entered the Road to Rule in dreams, however. So it was a strange sight to behold, waking up, Naveena's face pressed against the soft grass of the road, Theresa standing in front of the closed gate like a maroon-robed sentinel, her hands clasped in front of her as she shifted from foot-to-foot.

"Hello, little princess." Said Theresa, her voice as quiet and soft as it usually was. The woman, always an puzzle to Naveena, had her head tilted downwards, the hood dipped over her features. Naveena could still make out beetle-black eyes, gleaming solidly underneath the shadows.

Pulling herself up from the ground, Naveena stood in front of the enigma, curious as to what the woman could possibly want from her now. The seeress acted as a guide to her, often offering advice to her revolution, as well as things to ponder and think about.

"Theresa? What is it?" Naveena rubbed sleepily at her blue eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

"No. I have summoned you here, to ask but a simple question, and to ask that you think about the answer." She lifted her just a little bit, shifting from foot-to-foot, and for a second, Naveena thought she felt herself being pried open, and that maybe Theresa was scouring her emotions, her feelings.

"Right… questions…" She mumbled, breaking the eye-contact, a tingling feeling rushing up her spine like electricity.

"Do you feel the weight of the world upon your shoulders yet? The responsibility that comes with ruling a nation, with ruling Albion? The responsibility that arrives with controlling the fate of the entire world?"

Naveena froze, looking back up at her ephemeral guide, looking into those fathomless eyes, eyes which bore no emotion or betrayal of anger. That tingling feeling crawled up her spine once more, like a long-legged spider that had found its way under the fabric of her clothes.

"Yeah, of course I do. I'm running a revolution, aren't I? Swift is dead. And that's entirely my fault, I could've stopped him from going to the castle… I could've avoided any of those Quests until after I'd taken the throne…"

She felt nothing for Swift's death. Naveena hadn't known the man, and there were always casualties in war, of course. And she could have stopped him, she had seen the Wanted posters, plastered everywhere in response to their coup d'état, recognizing the members of the Bowerstone Resistance and its leaders. But he had known the risks. They all had known the risks. _She _knew the risks.

Theresa didn't seem pleased with her answer, wringing her wrists in front of her. Naveena noticed, for the first time, that the woman's hands were lightly calloused with what seemed to be burns, cool discolored bumps across her forefingers, as if she'd held something fiery within her hands.

"Every choice has a consequence, no matter how trivial the choice or insignificant the consequence. Do you realize this?"

"I know that." Naveena wasn't sure where Theresa was going with this, or why she herself was feeling so nervous. "Everyone knows that. Where are you going with this?"

The mist around them seemed thicker somehow, churned by the nervousness and agitation present in Naveena and the cool, icy demeanor that Theresa exhibited. Naveena squirmed in the spot she was standing, as Theresa looked at her, at something Naveena could not see… and didn't want to see. A cool, wintry breeze spread across the road, biting at her skin, chilling her slightly.

"And what of your choice to be in a relationship with Reaver? And the consequences that come with that, Naveena? Would you let your personal feelings get in the way of protecting Albion?" Theresa questioned, her voice as thin as paper.

"I…" Naveena started, and all that uneasiness inside of her vanished, turning into anger, annoyance. She wasn't in a relationship with Reaver! She hated him, despite those superficial feelings she held! "I don't even_ like_ him! There's nothing _to _like! Theresa, I wouldn't let my _feelings _get in the way of anything, let alone the safety of Albion!"

Theresa seemed unimpressed, even as Naveena walked towards her and grabbed her arm, tightly, fingers digging into the folds of her robe. She had pushed a button, a rather delicate, often pushed button.

"Would you? Should you pursue such a frivolity with the Hero of Skill, would you accept the consequences of such an arrangement?" Theresa tilted her head to the right, away from Naveena's hand.

"No, because it is _never going to happen."_

She didn't want it to happen. Elliot would be a safer option. Reaver was dangerous, too dangerous, and she did not care for his personality or corruptness. And yet, still… no. She did not trust Reaver. Naveena would not pursue such a stupid thing because there was no trust there. He had lovers, not wives. He was treacherous, not loyal. And he was loathsome, not cherubic.

"Do you truly think that, princess? He deceives, chokes others like reeds in the sea. And you do feel for him."

Naveena, feeling all that rage build up in the pit of her stomach, pulled her other hand backwards, and punched Theresa. She would not be lectured like some little girl! She could make her own choices, and would face her own consequences!

However, Theresa disappeared.

Naveena fell forward, grabbing onto the wrought iron gate for support, its metal clanging dully within the Road to Rule. For a moment there was silence, as Naveena pulled herself back together, realizing that Theresa had vanished before she could hit her. She gasped for breath, fingers curled in the black iron of the closed gate, still closed as she had not pulled forward in her revolution.

"Mind yourself, Naveena. Your attacks have no effect." Theresa's voice echoed throughout the road, flanging.

"I can make my own choices!" Naveena yelled, and it was loud, full of some incurred wrath. "And I can face whatever consequences you're talking about by myself, without your help!"

She expected Theresa to make some irritating comment, as the woman seemed to do, but there was nothing. No sound, no voice, no hum. It was as if the Seer of the Spire was just… gone. Nowhere to be found. Naveena leaned against the gate for a few seconds, before falling to her knees in front of it, still angry, still pissed off at the enigma.

The world around her folded in on itself and soon enough, she was in the comfort of her uncomfortable bed.

Naveena stared up at the ceiling, seeing patterns within the curvature of the wooden wall. Her insomnia had always been a point of concern during her childhood, and made it difficult to sleep at night. And, before she was old enough to figure out how to escape her room at night, she would look up at the ceilings of her room and pick out faces, animals, places, people. She would spend hours coming up with stories about knights and kings, women warriors and royal weddings…

She closed her eyes, blocking out the ringing in her ears, and the disturbance that gnawed at her stomach. The revolutionary did not appreciate the guilt that was eating away at her, or the fact that people were lecturing her about her choices. She wasn't a child any longer; Logan had affirmed that, and had done so in a spectacularly awful way.

There was no way that she would be getting back to sleep now. Not a chance.

Ace whimpered, rising from his spot on the floor to get on the bed with Naveena. She shot him a complaint-filled glance as he laid down beside her, resting his snout on her stomach. Letting out a slightly content sigh, she scratched at his ears. Outside, it was raining, pattering sharply against the walls. Ace whined again. As brave as the dog was, he was wimpy around storms, preferring to hide somewhere whenever they struck.

And yet he was perfectly fine with wolves and Balverines and bandits. Naveena would never figure that one out.

"It's okay, boy, just a little storm." She assured her dog, and he whined once again. Shifting his weight beside her body, Naveena felt her restlessness kicking in once again, and with slight sluggishness, she moved from the warmth of her bed to pace around the room. With the knowledge of her not being able to fall back to sleep hanging over her heavily, Naveena slipped on her mercenary clothes. She tied the laces, fixed the hat on her head, and sighed heavily. Her faithful companion had fallen asleep in her bed, curled up in the warmth of her droll covers, snuffling softly in his rest.

It was then that a cannonball ripped through the walls of her bedroom, splintering wood and sending debris and the sea everywhere. Naveena shot from her spot on the bed, as did Ace, and Ben flung open the door.

"It's the fleet!" Ben announced, and Naveena as well as Ace ran over to join him in the doorway as the room flooded with water. "They've found us, get on to the deck!"

He ran through the hall, which had turned into a miniature river, and Naveena followed him. Water was everywhere; the fleet had caught them by surprise.

When the three arrived on the deck, they were greeted with a tumultuous storm that rained buckets upon the ship, and the sound of cannonballs ripping through the air, letting out a dull sound that could've shaken the heavens. Streaks of lightning flew through the thunderclouds, as quick as angels ripping through the sky, eager to deliver their messages. Reaver and Walter were crouched beside cannons, taking cover beneath the balcony of the ship.

The ship that had sailed and anchored beside them was of course a portion of Logan's fleet. It was gilded in gold and almost an exact copy of their own, the sail proudly portraying the insignia of Reaver Industries, a facsimile of their sail. How they had known it was them would remain unknown forever, for the very thought that the fleets attacked each other was preposterous.

Ben took cover beside a cannon, as did Naveena, Ace cowering next to her, shaking and whimpering like the terrified mutt he was. Reaver, with an air of superiority, loaded his pistol and with a wolfish smile that declared how excited he was to shoot someone, aimed at one of the fleet's crew and shot, scoring a near impossible shot between the eyes.

It had been the Captain. The fleet's crew roared, a few diving to help their fallen comrade, but it was obvious that he was dead: Reaver did not miss a shot. Ben hooted, as did Walter, but after realizing just who they were hooting for, they stopped abruptly, frowning. Walter let off one of the cannons, and the sound rang through their ears loudly, like the scream of a giant that had been stabbed thoroughly in the foot with a greatsword. The fleet's mast was destroyed through the middle, and slowly, like a tree that had been cut with some efficiency, it fell into the ocean, flinging up waves of water. They let off their own cannons, one of them flying into the deck, creating an abysmal hole within the deck.

Naveena's ears rang as she let off her own cannon and as Reaver shot yet another member of the crew. Another cannonball ripped into the balcony beside her, pieces of wood striking sharply against her cheek. She closed her eyes, the ringing in her ears growing louder and louder. She could hear the shot of Reaver's pistol, another cannon going off – not theirs, she was sure of that – and suddenly, Walter's voice rang louder than everything,

"We're sinking! Brace yourselves!"

The last thing she heard before she fell into the dark waters below her was the cheers of Logan's Fleet.

* * *

**Accidentally deleted this chapter when I was done with it two days ago. And I somehow managed to rewrite all of it!**

**Feedback is appreciated!**


	8. Fireside

Avarice

Chapter 8: Fireside

_And all of us we will endure,_

_Just like we always have,_

_But you just can't be too sure,_

_About how long this will last!_

"_The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting On One" – Relient K_

_

* * *

_

Reaver woke up, soaking wet, laying face-down in sand, and to a dog licking at his face. To say that this was the weirdest place he'd woken up in would be a lie. He had awoken in stranger places, like a cage, half-naked and tied-up and with that tattoo over his mole as well as having woken up in the middle of Bower Lake inside that gazebo, _completely _naked. But at least then, he didn't have some mutt licking his face with a tongue that had been Avo-Knows-Where.

"Begone, you ugly mongrel." He rose from his spot on the shore, a movement that made Ace bark happily. "I'd rather have woken up to your lovely mistress than _you. _Filthy mutt._"_

Ace barked again, in that endearingly dumb way that would've made anyone else reach down and scratch his ears. Of course, this was Reaver, and he had no love for these cute and manipulative little monstrosities known as pets. And they smelled. Badly.

The man looked upwards, his eyes roving the dark sky. It had stopped raining only moments ago, as the air around him was humid, thick with residual liquid. He could see the ocean, stretching outwards in front of him like an indescribably midnight blue blanket that touched the clear sky at the horizon point, separating sea from heaven. The sand underneath his feet shifted loosely as he walked along the shore, and Reaver let his gaze travel lazily over the red mountains. They were craggy, all angles and weird shapes, eroded by countless slaps from the ocean over time. Ace ran ahead of him, searching for his mistress.

"_Perhaps they all died in the battle. A shame then, I would not look forward to finding my way out of here by myself." _Reaver picked at the sand caught in his jacket. The ruined cloth was no loss; he had money to burn. Well, money that had been eagerly swiped from the people of Albion but they could just simply steal from each other.

Ahead of him, the collie bounced eagerly, poking amidst pieces of debris with his long nose. Reaver watched as the dog turned to a shadow that was too big to be a log and too lumpy and alive to be anything else. Ace licked eagerly at Naveena's face as Reaver approached, readjusting his jacket.

The girl groaned into the sand, her gloved fingers digging into the groaned as she stirred from her slumber.

"Come on, my dear," Reaver admonished, clapping his hands. "It is too horrid a day to be spending it face-down on the ground!"

Naveena coughed, touching the base of her throat as she spat out grains of sand. She looked at Ace, who waved his tail jubilantly, his black eyes gleaming, and moved to sit on her knees, raising her blue eyes up at Reaver.

"What happened?" She asked, wiping strands of dirty and drenched red hair from her forehead. She sounded delirious, but Reaver made no move to ask if she was alright.

"I'm afraid we suffered a rather devastating defeat at the hands of the King. Shameful, really, and your friend and mentor may be dead but that hardly matters at the moment, kitten. I am eager to get away from here and find out where we are so come on, chop-chop, we need to think of something clever." He responded, waving his hands in that flamboyant little way that would always irritate her and turn her into the little spitfire he knew she was.

"No… no… they're not dead." Naveena said, quietly. She touched her forehead, and Ace whined plaintively at her. "I don't… feel so well…"

"We should perhaps make a little camp, and decide what to do then…" Reaver ignored her, looking out at the ocean again as if it would provide answers. "Yes, that sounds like an excellent idea! Go gather firewood, my sweet minx!"

Naveena threw up into the ocean, and Reaver looked away from her, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Ace whimpered again, his tail shoved between his legs pathetically as his mistress deposed of whatever little had been resting in her stomach. She coughed, and then looked back up at Reaver, sniffing.

"I'm going… to go rest. You gather the firewood." She spat out, standing up, pulling a piece of seaweed off of her arm.

"Me? My dear, you are perfectly able of doing so yourself."

"That was an order. I'm your Queen."

"Not yet, my sweet little minx, not yet." Shrugging, Reaver begrudgingly did as she asked, searching for pieces of their ship that had made it through the attack. Naveena nestled by the mountains, shivering and feeling very unwell. Above, the night sky seemed endless, as if she could get lost in its dotted stars and deep depths.

She worried then, for Ben Finn and Walter. Where were they? Had they washed up on some other shore?

"_They'll be fine…" _She repeated to herself, shutting her eyes as if afraid to face the prospect of either of them dying. _"They'll be fine. Ben has Walter with him and Walter's… Walter's a tough old sod. They're somewhere with a five star hotel. They're somewhere with a five star hotel. They're somewhere with a five star hotel…" _Naveena murmured that mantra to herself many times, attempting to convince herself that they were alive, that she would be okay, that Reaver-

"_No. Not thinking about him. Crazy man-eating sharks can eat him for all I care."_

Opening her eyes, Naveena reluctantly looked over at Reaver. The tall man walked along the shoreline, and not for the first time, Naveena admired his delicate gait, his long and slender legs… for a second, she compared him to a stag, what with the elegant way he moved. His skin gleamed like porcelain in the dim light of the darkness, and his lanky body stood out against the waters, a slim shadow that bent to and fro, picking up pieces of dried debris and stuck it in the crook of his arms.

After a few minutes, Reaver moved to her position, dropping a pile of dried wood in front of her.

"Not the greatest present to give a lady, Reaver." She jibed, sarcastically, cocking an eyebrow at him.

He chuckled, "I'm not used to having to give _presents_ to get what I want, my dear." He bent down, and Naveena noticed that not a single hair was out of place upon his head as he moved the pieces of debris around. When the wood was in a neat little pile, Reaver pulled a matchbox out of the pocket of his coat.

"Why do you have matches?" Naveena asked, amazed that Reaver would have something like matches in his coat, as it didn't seem like him.

"Honestly, my _sweet,_ I do not know."

A minute later, a fire crackled blissfully in the air. Naveena moved closer, desiring the warmth of the red and orange flames that lapped at the air. Reaver moved to take off his coat, revealing a brown waistcoat underneath, and the sleeves of a white dress shirt. He looked thinner without his coat, as if it had added a layer of something to him, and once again, Naveena was reminded of his delicateness.

She wondered if it would be easy to break a man like him.

"At the crack of dawn," Reaver said, taking off his gloves with his teeth. Naveena wasn't sure if he was trying to be impressive. "We should look for a way off this blasted shoreline. Groping about in the dark…" He stopped himself short, grinning.

"Not in the mood for your perversion, Reaver." Naveena cut him off, before he could make some crack about having sex in the desert.

"When _are_ you, my princess? You are as frigid as a glacier, _mon Cherie, _won't you allow me to melt your edges?" He leaned forward, like a cat, resting his chin upon folded hands. Those black eyes of his danced with delight at such a prospect.

"Never. I'm much happier when I'm like a block of ice. Less chance of dying of heat stroke in the desert, this way." Naveena wrinkled her nose, pushing back strands of her short red bangs. She shivered a little, the fire not warming her as quickly as she would have liked. Reaver, noticing this, leapt upon the weakness like a cat would to a mouse.

"Are you cold, kitten?" He picked up his coat, holding it up, a playful smirk settling on his lips. "Would you like my coat?"

It was a purposeful ploy, an attempt to get Naveena to admit a weakness. He knew of the girl's pride, the façade she crafted, one that tried to give off the impression of being bulletproof. Naveena glared at him, before sneezing in the crook of her arm. Indeed, she was cold and yes, she would have liked nothing more than a blanket.

"I'm fine." She hissed out, through clenched teeth, aware of what Reaver was trying to do. "I'm going to sleep."

With that, she turned away from him, letting the warmth lap at her back. She stared at a copse of rock, anything to not speak to Reaver, to try and ignore him and forget that he was there. After a few minutes of trying to sleep, Naveena opened her eyes again, cursing her insomnia to the Void and back.

"Can't sleep, _mon Cherie?" _

"Leave me alone, Reaver." Naveena retorted, shutting her eyes tightly. Of course she couldn't sleep! Not with this damn insomnia, and not with the darned cad sitting across from her!

"Would you like to hear a story? Such a thing is a _wonderful _remedy for getting yourself to sleep." Reaver laid on his back, legs crossed, his arms folded underneath his head. He watched the stars with an arrogant expression, as if he believed himself higher than the only entities that touched the skies.

"Your stories would no doubt curdle my blood and haunt my dreams."

Reaver tsked, his smile twitching in the corners, "Such a mouth. No, I give you not the tales of my conquests, the ones I promised during our little _Echange de couer. _Those are reserved for… intimate affairs, my sweet. I wish to regale you with a tale about your mother." He smirked, remembering the fiery Hero Queen.

"If this is some sick way of telling me that you bedded my mother, then I am not amused." Naveena hissed, turning around to face him. Her eyes were like little blue flames in their sockets, and she glared at the thin man, who only laughed at such a thought. He toyed with the ruffles of his cravat, staring up at the sky with an expression that could only be described as indecipherable.

"No, _ma belle Sparrow _turned down my various offers of ménage-a-trois, just like you. Such a thing is not unimaginable, but quite disheartening._" _His smirk quickly turned to a small, cute frown.

"Good for her." Was Naveena's quick-witted retort, she laid down, facing Reaver this time. Her interest had been piqued.

"Tell me, _princesse, _did your mentor ever tell you of how your mother came to gather all of Albion underneath the crown? It is quite a tale, one rife with political intrigue, backhanded deals and war. Our delightful Hero Queen may have been a Hero, but she wasn't always popular with the people. Rather like me, actually." At this, Reaver grinned, as if proud of the fact that Sparrow held a similarity to him.

"She chose Wealth in the Spire. I know that." Naveena admitted, nodding. "Everyone knows that, but she was a good-"

"Did you really know that she was a good person, my dear?" Reaver interjected, he was looking at her now, tilting his head to the side. His eyes were dark, darker than Naveena had ever seen them before. "She had made a rather petty choice, all because she planned to create an army. To start war. To rule Albion. Not that I blame her, I would have done the exact same thing were I in her shoes."

"Because you're _you, _but she was a Hero." Naveena argued. She didn't like the things he was saying. No one would like it if someone were to disparage their mother in front of them. Reaver laughed, really laughed, his laughter echoing slightly in the little copse they were in. The flames played shadows upon his features, the shadows pooling in the dips of his cheeks and collarbones.

"I am a Hero, too, my innocent _belle." _Reaver smirked, his teeth like little sharp points. "As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me, do you wish to hear a story about your _sweet _little mother, about how she started her little civil war and came to be the regent of Albion?"

Naveena opened her mouth, as if to argue, but then closed it. She settled herself into a comfortable position, and Reaver tsked again. He looked up at the sky, at its swallowing darkness, and began…

"It all began when I returned from Samarkand, lovely little jungle…"

* * *

_It all began when I returned from Samarkand, lovely little jungle, my kitten, you really should visit it sometime. There is a miserly amount of hedonistic pursuits in such a place, it seems perfect for you. Oh, do not give me that glare, princess. Such an expression will ruin your youthful features. And we simply cannot have that._

_Oh, very well, I will continue on with the story. No need to be so pedantic my dear._

_I approached the quaint little town of Bloodstone, barking orders to my lovely little crew while in command of The Reaver II. Now that, was a magnificent boat, my princess. She, oh don't make that irritating noise, ruled the seas simply with her beauty alone. Much like her captain. Bloodstone hadn't changed in the last seven years I was away, it had remained the same ugly little row of hovels it had been when I lived there._

_Yes, I did live in such a pitiful area, my dear. This was a long time before I built my mansion in the Millfields. I had lived in a rather romantic little seaside paradise before, though. It was the largest house in Bloodstone._

_Can you even imagine me living anywhere else? I am appalled that you would think so, kitten!_

_Anyway, as I was saying, The Reaver II began its slow approach into the docks of Bloodstone. The people looked upon it with such envy, and looked upon me with such desire, such passion…_

_Oh, how rude. I am __**not **__lying about the details. Such an accusation repels me._

_They looked upon me as if I were the greatest thing in the world, and I am, but the majority of Bloodstone's… denizens are less than savory. I myself did not enjoy living in it too much, but the location of my Aidenn was… convenient, for certain pastimes._

_No, not __**that. **__Really, my minx. Where did you learn such language?_

_I wandered through the city, my crew anchoring our ship, and I moved with such a purpose. The whores of Bloodstone swooned, sticking out their chests for some hope of __**release. **__However, I took notice of the fact that the more… stacked members of that low little caste had seemed to vanish over the years. A pity. As I had enjoyed their company a thousand times over. I walked purposefully towards my former home, pulling my Dragonstomper from its holster._

_Oh yes, I should explain. This adds ambience to the tale, no? Previously, before I had left for Samarkand, I had put my house up for sale, as I had expected to be gone quite a long time. And indeed, I would have been gone longer had it not been for the sheer boredom of being in that miserable jungle, but alas. I had left a letter behind, explaining to the misfortunate person who would have bought my little paradise that their life would be cut unexpectedly short upon my return._

_I hadn't expected your mother, the Hero Queen Sparrow, to be living in my home._

_So imagine my surprise upon finding armed guards at the gates of my lovely garden. How dare they, I'd thought, trampling upon my neatly trimmed grass and tremulous flowers. So I dispatched all four of them with ease. Needless to say, your mother is not very shrewd when it comes to picking her staff. Silly woman._

_Walking through their pools of blood, and being very careful that I did not get a single drop on my boots, I flung open the doors and found myself face to face with a rather curious butler. Quite a handsome fellow, too, if I recall. I believe his name was Jasper. Dark hair, pulled back into a little ponytail. Annoyed expression._

_Oh, you know him?_

_Well, he asked me very politely to leave. Seeing as this was my home, I asked him to do the very same, at gunpoint._

_Very strange lad. Didn't flinch at all. I told him that it was such a shame that a beautiful devil such as him would end up painting the floors of my Manor. And still, he did not flinch. Oh, your mother had chosen admirable guards, that was for sure._

_That was when the doors of the study were opened. And out came a woman I had not expected to seen. Your mother was gorgeous, as always. She had never quite developed an affinity for Strength, so her body had remained only marginally strong. Sparrow preferred Skill and Will, I remember her being very… aggressive about flaunting such abilities in front of me. She looked a lot like you, ma belle. Wild, fiery hair, that fell in curls around her shoulders. Pale, white skin, and ultramarine eyes. Oh, how one could get lost in those eyes of hers._

_Don't look at me like that, mon Cherie. She wasn't quite as scintillatingly pretty as you! No, I will not be quiet about such things. How could anyone be?_

_I remember her greeting to this day, Sparrow had said in such a stinging tone,_

"_I'm afraid you're going to have to go through me for your beloved Manor, Reaver." And with that she dismissed Jasper and offered me into the study._

_Oh, I had planned to shoot her, certainly. I had no affection for he, no emotion akin to that nonsensical emotion known as love, but ma belle Sparrow is a striking businesswoman. And who would I be to shoot such an old, dear friend. Ah, you may think I lie but I do not. I consider any who escape my clutches a dear friend._

_She had a single guard in the study. That man, I believe you know quite well. He's your mentor, and your personal baby sitter._

_Yes, it was Walter. Is that his name? I've never cared much for the peons of the higher class. Oh, do not look at me like that. Such is politics. Ha, I've never heard that joke. Quite hilarious. No, I am not being an arse or humoring you._

_You do a grand job of getting me distracted, love. As I was saying, your delightful mother led me into the study, and that poor guard looked __**so **__tense. I offered to relieve him of his tension but he only gave me a dirty look._

"_Such unresponsive companions you travel with," I told your mother, taking a seat in one of the winged-back chairs. She took a seat across from me, ordering her butler to get us a bottle of wine. "I do hope they haven't been sullying my manor with their unfriendliness."_

_Walter opened his mouth, hands moving to his sword – oh, isn't that a delightful double entendre – but Sparrow cut him off with a single icy glance. He stopped immediately. Your mother has always been dreadfully intimidating._

"_The Mayor of Bowerstone sends assassins constantly," She explained, as Jasper walked back into the study, a silver tray in hand. He handed her two goblets, and a bottle of the finest wine. "You cannot blame them, Reaver."_

_I chuckled, something which seemed to make that poor guard tenser, as your mother poured a glass for me, "I do hope that isn't from my stash, my little minx. You've already taken quite enough from me."_

_She handed me a chalice, and I gave her a dashing smile. Sparrow returned it with only frigidness and an unsmiling smile. She raised her glass, and I did so to mine. Jasper left, giving a slight bow before leaving. Polite chap._

"_You can have your Manor back soon enough," She placed the goblet beside her on one of the end tables. I held mine delicately in my hands, sloshing the sanguine liquid within elegantly. "I need it as my headquarters until I can depose of that abhorrent Mayor."_

"_And I had thought the people adored you." I took another sip from my chalice. Ah, lovely taste. "Was it that decision in the Spire that turned them against you? Such fickle people."_

"_Ah, but I had made a very selfish decision. 'Twas the quickest way to get funds for my army. The people's opinions matter very little to me, though it has proven difficult to rise to power. I have my support, but the support for Oren, the Mayor, a distant cousin of Lucien's I believe, is greater." She tsked, looking up at Walter again. Her gaze seemed to soften, here._

_Your mother liked your mentor quite a lot, if I recall correctly._

"_And you want my help," I laughed. Your mother was always quite easy to read. Like an open book. I believe it came from not speaking much. Oh, Sparrow was a dreadful conversationalist. No fun at all. Not like you, mon Cherie. "Such a fine day it is, for the great Sparrow to come seeking a Pirate King's help!"_

_Sparrow smirked. Though your mother didn't speak much, her actions spoke volumes. I often wondered what she would've been like in bed, what with that body language of hers…_

_Yes, yes, you are no fun, you know that?_

_Her smirk was one of extreme cunning, one would've referred to it as… roguish._

"_You are sharp." She replied, taking a long swallow of that wine. My wine. "Indeed. I was going to ask for your help."_

"_And what is in it for me, hm?" I asked, leaning back in a chair I had often lounged in, though usually bereft of clothes. "I would not lift a finger to help you if I get nothing in return. And I'm sure this Oren fellow would be more than willing to pay me to assassinate you."_

_It was then that that guard, Walter, jumped forward, a slew of expletives flying from his lips. He unsheathed his sword, but Sparrow had yelled, her voice as hot as cast iron,_

"_Walter Beck, stand down!"_

_He had been quite prepared to throttle me before going back into his corner like a naughty child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. _

"_I did not notice that the Amazon had turned into a man and decided to take up arms with you, ma belle Sparrow." I commented, tilting my head slightly. "How unfortunate."_

_Walter swore under his breath, quietly, though loud enough for me to hear. If Sparrow could, she simply ignored him._

"_Hammer is still in the Wastes, fighting Balverines. She sends me her resentment, though wishes me good luck." Sparrow replied, sipping from her chalice eagerly, frowning. There is another thing the two of you have in common, your frowns. Such awful frowns. "She still believes the choice I made in the Spire to be petty, after all these years. Many people do."_

"_Enough of such pitiful talk, my sweet. I'd prefer that we go back to the subject about what you will be giving me." I watched the Queen with a rightfully privileged expression._

"_A slice of the Industrial part of Bowerstone. Not complete control over it. Just enough to start building factories. If you help me in this civil war, I can give you power. A voice in the Court."_

"_The Court? Starting a monarchy, Sparrow?" I smiled, that wide smile of mine. The one that made all women swoon like love struck baboons. "How very peasant of you."_

_She nodded, and then stood up. Looking at Walter, she waved him out the study. Reluctantly, he left, shooting one last glance at me before closing the doors of the study. Your mother, her auburn curls bouncing about her shoulders as she turned her head to look at me, looming over me in a way I suppose she thought was intimidating, smiled._

"_Do we have a deal, Reaver? You can have your Manor, a place of power within the Royal Court, a foothold in the Industrialization…"_

"_It certainly is an interesting offer, ma belle. I can do no such thing except accept." I agreed. She made a very fine deal. It was your brother, the King, who decided to hand over complete control of Industrial over to me later on. Sparrow may have been rolling in her grave, by then._

_That is the story of how the Monarchy came to be._

* * *

Naveena had long since fallen asleep, soothed by the lullaby that was Reaver's voice. Reaver looked at her over the slightly dying fire, and with a begrudging sigh, watched as she shivered in the darkness. He lifted his jacket, stood and placed it over her. An action that was uncharacteristically kind of him, but Reaver was not completely prone to kindness.

Tucking her in slightly, and sneaking a small grope, Reaver found himself strongly reminded of a blond woman with tawny freckles and big blue eyes.

"_No. She is dead. __**He **__is dead." _He reminded himself, moving back to his spot on the ground.

"_They are dead, along with the rest of the villagers in Oakvale."_

_

* * *

_

**Feedback is appreciated!**


	9. Darkness Incarnate

Avarice

Chapter 9: Darkness Incarnate

_And through its ghastly lineaments he saw,_

_Hundreds of slain children,_

_Some came crawling disemboweled,_

_To where he stretched out howling on all fours._

"_Darkness Incarnate" – Cradle of Filth_

_

* * *

_

The hot sun beat down upon the two of them as they moved along the shoreline. Ace ran ahead of the two trudging Heroes, barking excitedly.

"Blasted dog," Naveena scoffed, watching as the collie ran to and fro. "I don't how he can be happy in this damned weather…" Rivulets of sweat ran down the contours of her cheeks, and she discarded her mercenary jacket, revealing the green-dyed shirt underneath. She looked to Reaver, who had also discarded his jacket, and felt a small stab of pity for the poor man, who was overdressed for such an occasion like this.

"I would take absolute _delight _in shooting your mutt, but I have the feeling that you wouldn't appreciate that, kitten." As if to accentuate this fact, he took the Dragonstomper from the holster on his thigh and waved it haphazardly at the dog. Naveena snorted, not wanting to use her small bits of energy on admonishing Reaver or getting angry at him. She felt her feet scuff the sands, and her gaze drifted downwards, the eyelids heavy from exhaustion.

"Do you see that?" Reaver asked, licking his lips assertively. "Just ahead. A cave, of sorts, I believe."

Naveena lifted her gaze again, and saw a small gorge where the mountains were hollowed out. It appeared ominous, and for some reason, the darkest of shivers ran down her spine. Ace ran ahead, going headfirst into the cave, barking just as he would had he found some mystical treasure. Naveena lamented the fact that she never named her dog Leroy, as it would have offered her some sort of comical relief at this time.

"Wonderful." She swallowed her spit, desperate for some water. Reaver laughed, just a bit, and he sounded just as pinched, as drawn out as she did.

Ace was just inside the cave, lapping at a pond of fresh water that was, conveniently enough, right there. Naveena ran towards it, Reaver on her heels, as though the pond were a mountain of gold. She bent down, cupping her hands and gathering the water, drinking it greedily. Reaver bent down just beside her, repeating the motion, though he did so in a more refined and elegant way. Drops of water dripped from her chin, and she wiped them away with her naked arm.

The revolutionary scratched at her hound's ears, praising him, "Good job, boy."

"Yes, such a-"Reaver started, but he was cut off by a swarm of bats that flew overhead in a great black heap. The industrialist squeaked, flinching as the bats screeched in that strange little way of theirs. Naveena was inclined to laugh, giggle at him.

"Afraid of bats?" She teased, smirking at him. "I thought you were the all powerful Reaver, god of everything that was snobby and hedonistic."

"My dear, as much as I enjoy your lovely company, what with your divine legs, rounded buttocks and smart mouth, I still do have a gun, and I still _am _Reaver." He waved the gun in the air again, and just for good measure, shot the ceiling of the cave. The sound made Naveena, in turn, flinch and draw back. "I may just let my trigger finger… _slip."_

"Right. Let's move on." Naveena stood up, quickly, slightly flustered by the fact that she had just let herself get intimidated by Reaver, or that she had even shown any sort of weakness to the deviant. Such a thing vexed her. Tucking loose strands of her bangs behind her ears, Naveena asked, offhandedly,

"Do you think Ben and Walter are alright?" She had tried to not acknowledge their disappearance, but the worry, the very thought, that they could be dead haunted her at the moment. It was like a thick black cloud that hung over her, refusing to go away for even a moment. Naveena wasn't sure why she was asking Reaver this, either. He cared not a whit about the two of them.

His answer only validated her thought, "_Ma belle princesse, _it is more likely that the two of them are drowning in the sea as we speak rather than alive and well and all those stupid little words." Reaver shrugged, following behind her. The gold buttons on his waistcoat clinked as he walked, culminating in a rather annoying sound.

"Reaver, you should be a counselor. The way you reassure people is just astounding." She hissed, viciously, though her heart was sinking horribly in her chest. It was possible that they were both dead, underwater, floating about with the reeds like overlarge fish. Naveena closed her eyes, trying to shake the thought from her mind. She would have hope.

"Well, I _am _rather astounding in all things." Reaver boasted, his voice high and full of himself.

Naveena rolled her eyes, and stopped suddenly when they came across a ruined balcony.

"Ruins? In this place?" She wondered out loud, Ace barked, running through the ruins ahead of the two. Reaver stopped as well, looking intrigued as he walked towards the balcony, leaning over it.

"Well, this _can't _be good." He muttered to himself, his eyes fixated on something below. Naveena hurried to stand beside him, and she peered down as well, looking to see what had captured Reaver so.

There was a staircase that led to a small copse, built from old stone. There was a strange hole in the middle of the ground, formed into a perfect circle. But it was not this oddity that enraptured the two Heroes, it was the force field that covered the hole. It glowed, in the same way a star would twinkle, covered in ever-shifting purple. Naveena heard a beating in the back of her head, like the sound of a muffled heart, and she got the feeling that the ruins the two of them had come across were… sentient. Alive.

"What is that?" Naveena asked, not to anyone in particular. She took notice of the rotting skeletons around the force field, travelers just like them that had found themselves in this place. "Magic?"

A few bats, little dark shapes with wings, fluttered around, startled by the two humans that had entered their domain. Reaver was staring at the field with riveted eyes, a small smirk playing on his lips. He seemed to have not heard her.

"Such a sinister feel this place has, don't you agree?" He said, his voice incredibly quiet.

Naveena turned away from Reaver, walking down what appeared to be a hall at one point or another. Moss grew upon the aged flagstones below her, and pieces of the columns were missing, becoming chunks of stone at her feet. Ace stayed close beside her, his warm fur pressing into the sheer of her striped leggings. He whimpered a bit, frightened by the 'sinister' aura of the ruin.

"It's all right boy." She reassured him, petting the top of his head. "It'll be okay. Everything is going to be okay."

She wasn't sure if she was actually reassuring Ace, or herself.

Reaver joined her as they walked down the stairs, and once again, Naveena got that feeling that they were not completely alone. That the stone they walked on breathed and the violet field below them beat with every passing step.

"We're not going to be able to get out of here unless we find a way to get rid of that field." She commented, her eyes drawn inexplicably to the thing. Ace pressed against her even more as Reaver gravitated towards the piles of rotting bone. Naveena approached him, watching with disgust as he disturbed the dead's resting place with gloved fingers, searching for something. After a moment, Reaver seemed to sense that he was being watched, and he cocked his head to look at her.

"Well, go on," He shooed, waving a hand tiredly at her as though she were an extremely bothersome pest. "Search that pile over there for something we can use. Chop-chop."

Naveena moved to the other side of the copse, bending over the skeleton and wrinkling her nose at the stench. Taking notice of a small gaggle of papers, Naveena sifted through them, her fingers brushing against the papers. She picked up a small sheet, and told Reaver,

"I've found something. A note."

Reaver looked up from his work, cocking an eyebrow, "Well, go on. This suspense is killing me, slowly."

"It speaks to us still," Naveena started, in a slightly irritated voice. "The Darkness Incarnate. We know now," Her voice shook a little, and she swallowed the questions that bubbled suddenly in the back of her throat. "That we can never escape it."

The words seemed to sift through Reaver's head, and his dark eyes narrowed in the dim, artificial light of the copse.

"Delightful. So we're to go mad in this lovely little cave and then die a horrible death? Mind you, I can't die, but I'd rather get out of this blasted place. Lives to ruin, workers to enslave, widows to bereave…" Reaver chuckled slightly, as if this were all an amusing little joke. He turned back to the pile of bones. "Keep looking, my minx."

"Ah-ha!" Reaver announced, pulling a thick book from the bones of the skeleton. Naveena stood, dropping the note, where it fluttered harmlessly down to the ground, going towards Reaver. He held the book firmly in his hands, frowning at it. "It appears to be a journal, unfortunately most of the pages have… decomposed, along with these moronic men."

"What does it say?" Naveena inquired, looking at the pages as Reaver flipped through whatever little was left of the text.

"There are a great number of little glyphs, but you can make out a few words…" He moved to the dais that was by the circle, stepping onto it. Naveena watched him with eager eyes as he brushed a few pieces of inky hair from his face and said, in a low voice,

"Luminous spirits of the sands, impart daybreak and gleam under a quiet moon… is this a blasted poe-"

He was cut off by wisps of light that shot from the pages, and the letters glistened like little rubies that were trapped within the pages. Reaver looked up, aghast, as the wisps curled angrily in the air, pulled by some tumultuous force. Naveena rushed to Reaver, pulling him out of the way quickly as the field evaporated, disappearing as though some force had shattered it, shattered like a glass that had been thrown wildly to the floor.

"Look at that…" Naveena started, looking upon the staircase that led downwards, to… well, to who knows where! "The field… it's gone!"

"As I said, I _am _astounding." Reaver sounded pleased with himself, a wolfish smile twisting his cheeks. He had a hand over his heart, ruffling the black lace that was bunched at his throat.

"And rather stupid. What if that book summoned a million fire-breathing chickens to wipe us out? What would you do then?" Naveena scolded him, looking at him with narrowed ultramarine eyes. She put her hand on her hip, and Ace barked, as if to back up his mistress.

"Oh, those symbols were no summoning symbols." Reaver replied, wrinkling his nose as if this should have been obvious to Naveena. "_Stupide fille_, I _know _my Old Kingdom history."

Naveena was absolutely positive that she'd just been insulted, but she ignored the fact and asked, following Reaver as he descended down the staircase, "Old Kingdom?"

"_Mon Cherie, _I did not spend all of my time frequenting the bordellos of Bloodstone in my earlier years. I've led quite the fascinating, and long-lived, life."

"Could've fooled me."

And they began their descent into the Darkness.

Little did they know though, that the indigo field reinstated itself as they found themselves in the caves.

* * *

"Ah, yes, remember when I talked about groping about in the dark just yesterday? This was not the kind of dark I was talking about. I cannot see a bloody thing." Reaver grumbled, as the two stood in front of some kind of stone gate. Tattered flags waved in front of a triangle-shaped doorway, and they stopped. Ace whined again, the only sound for a moment.

"Do you still have those matches?" Naveena, who trembled slightly in the utter darkness, asked him, her voice wavering ever so slightly. Reaver sighed, as if frustrated by the way this trip to Aurora was going.

"One, and I'd rather keep it for myself, to be honest." He rolled his shoulders. "I wouldn't give the last of anything to anyone, not even you my delicious _fleur de mal."_

She groaned, slapping her forehead with all the exasperation of a teacher that had to deal with an unruly child.

The two continued onwards, going through the triangular doorway, and into a large, elongated hall. It was incredibly dark, and the darkness pressed in on them from all sides, wrapping around like a blanket, smothering them. Ace ran suddenly ahead, his claws clacking against the stone.

"Ace! Wait!" Naveena called out, starting to run but suddenly stopping, reminding herself of the darkness.

"Well, my dear," Reaver said, continuing on ahead of Naveena while she peered into the darkness, searching for any trace of her loyal companion. "I do believe you have just lost your hound."

However, he stopped upon hearing the clicking of those claws again. Ace came running towards them, something long and thin grasped between his teeth. He stopped in front of Naveena, dropping a brazier at her feet.

"Good boy!" Naveena prompted, scratching at her hound's chin. Reaver, as if disgusted by such a display of affection, looked away, into the darkness.

"Looks like you're going to have to give me that single match, Reaver. Lest we go running around in total, complete and utter darkness." Naveena stated, grinning at the foppish cad. Reaver, straightening his posture in a way that seemed almost pompous, reached into the pocket of his pants and tossed her the matchbox. Catching it, the princess removed the final match and struck the light. Sparks flew from the match, catching the torch and setting it aflame.

Naveena handed it to Reaver, who accepted it without a word. They could see clearly now, the hall they had been walking in. Small diamond shapes covered the floor, and ominous chains dangled freely from the ceiling, like thick black whips.

"So… where are we?" Reaver wondered, aloud, looking around at the dilapidated area. "It seems rather like a temple, don't you think?" His fingers tapped the handle of the torch lightly.

"I'm not sure. I don't really want to stick around and find out." Naveena answered, her eyes scanning the area for any sort of monster or fiend. "But what could be worshipped in such a place?"

"I know quite a few things. They all begin with the letter 'S'." The cad's voice lifted slightly, hopefully.

But Naveena crushed his hopes, "I'm not playing a guessing game with you, Reaver."

"It was worth a try, a rather worthless try. You are really no fun, you do know that, I hope?" He put a hand on her shoulder, but Naveena shrugged it off, getting very agitated with the tall, long-legged man. Eventually, they came to the end of the hall, where it opened up into a large, auditorium-sort-of area. There was a balcony ahead of them, and what looked to be no way over to the other side.

"It's a dead end." The Heroine sounded incredibly annoyed, and she let out a groan that could've rivaled one a farmer would give out upon finding that all his crops had withered and died. "You _must _be joking."

"My sweet, I see nothing funny or jesting about this horrid situation." Reaver looked over the balcony, finding that it led to nothing more than an endless black pit. He clutched the torch tightly, his eyes narrowing. He looked up, over at the other side.

"Ah, a lever. How very inconvenient."

Naveena looked to the side, and saw a small hill that led to a path, or a bridge of some sort. Carefully, for she didn't want to fall and well, _die, _she teetered towards the edge, her faithful mutt close behind her.

"There's another way over there, here!" She yelled, looking over at Reaver who was still peering over the edge.

"Wonderful, do hurry along."

Naveena, making sure that she was being extremely careful, vaulted the small cliff, her feet slapping against the ruined floor beneath. Brushing a web of cobwebs from the area around her, she continued along until she found herself on the other side. The lever looked like any normal lever, though rust had begun to grow rapidly on it. She cracked her fingers, and gripped the lever tightly, pulling on the handle.

A few large boulders fell from the ceiling, and the area around her rumbled with life. There was a loud straining sound as a slab of stone connected the two dais', ending with a loud clicking as it settled. Reaver, with a steady gait, walked over, his fingers tightening around the torch.

"And so we continue on, into the unknown." Reaver announced, sighing as though he were bored by such a thing as the unknown.

"I thought you, of all people-"Naveena started, raising a rosy eyebrow, but she was cut off by a slithering sound. It was like the rustling of paper. Reaver had noticed it as well, and he looked eagerly around for some sort of indication of what that thing could have possibly been.

"Be on your guard." The princess warned, looking over at Reaver as though he would be anything else except on his guard. She placed a hand on the hilt of the sword, wishing once more for the familiarity of her hammer.

"How could I be anything but?" Reaver retorted, walking ahead of her, bravely into the darkness. There was a large staircase, not too dissimilar from the one that had been in front of Bowerstone Castle, and it led up to a small platform. Blocking the path, shimmering faux pas beauty, was yet another field.

Reaver held up the strange text again, clearing his throat and began, rolling his r's, "Luminous spirits of the sands, inhale the restless gloaming."

The field faded away, leaving not a trace of the fact that it was there and was now gone. With a growing sense of trepidation, the two Heroes entered through the triangular doorway. Stepping into yet another hallway, and at this point Naveena wondered if they'd found themselves trapped within a labyrinth, the two watched helplessly as the field went up yet again.

Reaver put a hand on the field, marveling at its solid, smooth structure.

"_Mon Cherie, _I've come to the conclusion that this blasted place is playing tricks with us."

"I've had the feeling that an omniscient force has been playing with us for quite a long time, as well. This just now validated that theory." Naveena sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She felt the beating of the place again, the feeling that this place was alive with something she couldn't, or rather wouldn't, know of.

Reaver stood there for a few moments, before going down the hall. Ace whined, as he usually did, his long brush tail held between his legs. Naveena followed suit, trembling slightly, feeling as though the darkness was closing in on them more and more, despite the light of the torch held in Reaver's hand.

They hadn't gone more than a few feet, when something horrid happened.

"_The light you bring will die!" _A voice, distorted by something evil and malevolent, rang out. Naveena stopped, unsheathing the sword strapped to her back, as Reaver brandished his Dragonstomper .48, the light of the brazier glinting off the two weapons.

"_The light inside you will die! All that you are… will die!"_

A heavy sound, much like the breathing of a hurricane, rushed through the hall, snapping wildly at their ears. Ace growled, his black eyes gleaming in the darkness. The two Heroes tightened their hold on the weapons, and Reaver shot the end of the hall, thinking that there was a monster there.

Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of pairs of yellow gleaming eyes appeared, blinking and winking in the shadows. The area around them became obsolete, shrouded in the blackest of blankets. Reaver shot again, but not a single sound was made besides the gunshot.

"What are those?" Naveena yelled, taking a step back. The yellow eyes watched her like a tiger would a precious piece of flesh.

The distorted sound, the voice, chuckled as if amused by Reaver's attempts and Naveena's shouts, "_The Children are here to play…"_

A few of the shadows jumped out. They were small, impish creatures, with wings and transparent bodies. A group flocked to Reaver, who shot at them, pulling back slightly, the torch held in one hand. Another gaggle of them flew to Naveena, and she swung her sword at them. She slashed open one of the shadows, their bodies fading as they were killed. There was no blood, no indication that the things were anything humanoid, and Naveena, frightened, shouted.

Reaver swung the torch, watching with wide, fascinated eyes as the things screamed, as if repelled by anything resembling light. He shot another one, and despite the fact that it was a perfect shot, the thing continued towards him, like a Hollow Man, its walk staggering but determined. He continued to swing the torch, his actions becoming more desperate as the shadows continued towards them, beckoning, their eyes large as they slashed at the Heroes.

One of the shadows jumped onto Naveena's back, holding her tightly, catching her by surprise. Naveena screamed, twisting her body, trying to fling the monster off of her. Reaver looked over at her, preoccupied with the shadows that were attacking him. Another shadow latched onto the princess, and the redhead fell backwards, her sword flying from her grasp.

"Reaver!" She called out, her blue eyes wide with terror, as the shadows took her away. Reaver, cursing, shot one of the shadows, missing thanks to a sharp cut from one of the previous shadows. Naveena disappeared in the darkness, Ace barking after her, but held back by the shadows.

"_You're tainted. The stain will never wash out. The sun will never shine upon you again. Tainted, broken little toys…"_

* * *

**Right. Yeah, Naveena's gone. Oh, Reaver you poor man, you get to go through the majority of this quest alone now.**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	10. The Crawler

Avarice

Chapter 10: The Crawler

_I have to block out thoughts of you,_

_So I don't lose my head,_

_Crawling like a cockroach,_

_Leaving babies in my bed._

"_Hate Me" – Blue October_

_

* * *

_

_Reaver was running._

_Around him, the cacophony of screams rose in crescendo, as their owners screamed for mercy, mercy from things that knew no such thing as they pulled them away, killing them if they resisted, or worse. He didn't care about them. It was never about __**them. **__They were pointless, faceless unprivileged atrocities in the face of what he was trying to find._

_He felt as though he were supposed to be remembering __**something. **__As though this was never important to begin with. What? Why? When? Where? How? Such things seemed as if they were important but at the moment, within this hellish monstrosity of circus screaming and burning homes, Reaver cared for nothing. _

_He was trying to find something. Some__**one**__._

_Something thicker than tears ran down the contours of his cheeks, as he ran, passing alleys and impish monsters that carried away blurred faces. It may have been blood. Reaver couldn't remember if someone had throttled him hard enough for that. Or rather, if he had let them._

_Somehow he found himself in front of __**their **__home._

_She was there, splayed across the front steps, her body contorted into viciously grotesque angles, her face vapid with pain, with horror and terror, and her skin devoid of any color. Reaver ran to her, kneeling above the woman he was trying to find, moving her from the steps and out into the streets of Oakvale. Holding her in her arms, something more began to run down his face, mixing with the crimson blood of his cuts._

_He was crying._

_The dying woman's eyes opened slowly, and gasping, she clutched at the collar of his shirt, her skin burning his, fingertips like the butts of cigars against him. She lay limp in his arms, trying to pull herself upwards with the stability of his shirt._

"_Sibyl, Sibyl, Sibyl," He said, quickly, the name melting into itself with repetition. He clutched her tightly, as though she were a doll that might soon break within his arms. "Sibyl, Sibyl…"_

_Please don't die, he wanted to say, but the words never came, never touched his lips._

_The shadows came, black impish little creatures with yellow eyes. Reaver swung his arms, but they went straight through them, and they were untouched by him. He could not bat them away, and he was helpless in the face of what was to come. Furiously, he continued, however, trying to force the shadows away as though they were dogs, something less than sentient._

_They grasped at Sibyl's broken body, and soon, she went through his touch as well, taken by the shadows. He knelt there, his hands in his lap, the full realization of what cost he had just paid cast fully on his tear and bloodstained face. He watched as they took her away, her youth seeping from her as slowly as it could possibly, and Reaver watched as she grew older and older, and farther and farther away, until there was nothing left but a speck on the horizon._

_He sat there until Oakvale burned, razed fully to the ground, and the ashes were scattered about him._

"_**Dorian!"**_

* * *

"_Reaver!"_ He heard Naveena cry, but it wasn't her voice. It was something more distorted, darker, and more… sinister.

"_You let her die! You let us take her! But you don't care, do you? Yes, we see into your heart, we see the darkness in your soul. Tainted, tainted, tainted! You don't care about a single thing, do you? You would like what we've done to her, you would revel in her pain like the twisted man you are!"_

The shadows grasped at him, and Ace bit viciously at their ankles, trying to help Reaver. He swung the torch, sweat rolling off his forehead, his eyes wide with terror, just as Naveena's had been before the shadows had taken her away. He reveled in the recoils of the atrocities, the screams of the 'Children'. Shooting at them, he tried desperately to ignore the voice that hissed loudly in the air around him, as though it were everywhere and yet nowhere at all,

"_She's calling your name! She's cursing it, cursing it! How could you, she says, how could you let them take me!"_

The shadows curled, shattering like pieces of glass in the air and Reaver began to run, his long legs taking him through innumerable hallways, past avian-like statues of monsters he had never seen before. Ahead of him, he could see nothing but darkness, despite the brazier held in his hands, and he could hear nothing but the screams of his name.

"_Reaver! Reaver!"_

Reaver stopped, in front of one of those triangular doorways, Ace stopping beside him as he gasped for air, for breath. Somehow, the ground beneath him became a dirt path, and the ruins around him became burning buildings, familiar with every groove and curve and flame. Raising his brown eyes and lowered head, he saw a flash of blue, a caring smile, an outstretched hand.

"_They call your name! They ask for your death, they ask and we will give!"_

Ace latched on to one of the buckles of his boots, growling, trying to pull him forward. He gasped, the flames of Oakvale disappearing around him, becoming the ruins once more. The torch fell from his grasp, falling to the ground with a loud, resonating clatter. And suddenly, there was a gust of numbingly cold wind, and the torch guttered out, wrapping Reaver and Naveena's constant companion in total darkness once again.

Reaver, acting quickly, bent over the torch, and looked for the matchbox. His fingers stumbled ungainly over the lapels of his clothes, and he remembered, his shoulders trembling slightly, that he had no more matches. He jumped back up, stumbling backwards slightly at the sudden action, his back bumping against something sharp, full of angles.

"_The light always dies… everything that you are will die!" _The voice, distorted, was closer now, by the shell of his ear. Ace growled, lowering himself to the ground, though unable to see just what had spoken in the darkness.

Reaver whipped around in the darkness, his brown eyes wide with something that was never usually present in the deviant: Fear.

In front of him, was the scariest, most abhorrent thing that had ever graced Albion with its presence.

The thing, monster, atrocity whatever you would call such a thing as the Crawler, could have neared six feet tall had it not been hunched over like it was. Three pairs of eyes blinked at him, beetle-black, glistening slightly. Its skin was stretched thinly over its bony, angular form, and was a gross, discolored light gray. The Crawler tilted its head, parts of its face flaring like the mandibles of a grasshopper. Reaver raised his Dragonstomper .48, stepping backwards, grinding his teeth as he looked upon the Crawler's horrific visage and he shot at it.

Like a candle that was about to die out, it flickered and disappeared. Smoke curled delicately from Reaver's pistol, rising to the ceiling. Reaver, unsure of what he had just seen, started back to run through that doorway he'd seen, looking out at the darkness with uncertainty before darting, Ace running beside him.

"_Broken! Undone!" _Came the Crawler's voice, distorted, disembodied. _"She is ours! Ours!"_

Reaver stumbled a bit, tripping over his hastiness to find a way out of this nightmare. He cared not for the fate of the princess of Albion, nor gave any thought as to where he was going, all he knew, and all he truly wanted was to leave this place.

Dark, thin hands pulled languidly at his arms as he ran past, trying to keep him there, to keep him within the darkness. He shot blindly at them, reveling in their recoils and hisses, his full lips parted as he tried to breathe in air. It seemed, to him at the moment at least, as though all sources of oxygen had been purged from the halls.

Ace barked, trying to pull him forward as he stopped for air, hands on his knees. In front of him, the area around him, it all became flames and memories again. Two pale hands grasped at his gloved fingers, running gently over the leather of his gloves. Reaver jerked them away, shooting at the woman ahead of him. She screamed, in the Crawler's strange little voice,

"_She screams! She cries for your pain!" _The shadows began to attack him, and he shot back. _"We will break you!"_

Rivulets of sweat ran down his face now, and dirt was swept across Reaver's usually immaculate skin, blackening its porcelain surface. The shadows cut him, and his own blood spattered across the flagstones. Brandishing the Dragonstomper .48, he killed them, listening to their shrieks, running through the darkened labyrinth known only by the name Shadelight.

"_The eyes are gone forever…"_

Reaver, with growing trepidation, found himself running through a sand-filled hallway. Below, the grains of sand shifted with each step, and Reaver stopped at the edge of a small cliff. His eyes darted behind him, his trembling becoming worse and worse with each, shaking, shattering breath. Something thick and tar-like fell from the ceilings, and the yellow eyes of the shadows watched eagerly as he vaulted the cliff.

Feet slapping against some archaic symbols that had been engraved into the stonework, Reaver looked up, hearing a dark circus of guttural gasps. He braced himself for something horrible, but Ace ran past him, barking happily upon seeing the small, doll-like figure at the back of the room.

"Naveena!" Reaver let out an unwanted cry of surprise and sprinted through the room, passing an array of avian, almost raptor-like statues that guarded the area like a spectral sentinel.

When he reached Naveena, he stopped himself short, just before reaching the dais upon which the Hero stood. Her arms were outstretched, palms upward as though she were praying for something, and her mouth gaped open like the gob of a goldfish that had been hooked. The tar-like liquid that he had just seen trickled lazily from her mouth, and she was covered in it, the lower body drenched in it. She seemed to be cemented there, by some unseen force.

"Uah… gah… rah…" She made sounds of pain, her eyes sealed shut, as though to open them would bring Naveena great pain. "Ah… gwah…"

Ace, crouching beside his pained mistress, whimpered, looking up at her with wide eyes. He had never before seen such an aggrieved look on Naveena, and even as a dog, he knew she was in great, terrible pain.

Taking a slow, almost reverent step towards her, Reaver forgot all sense of his identity as Reaver. For a moment, the man that had not yet destroyed Oakvale was laid bare, and Naveena could not see it. The eyes that fell upon her stressed body did not do so in pleasure, and the shaking hand that tried to grace her face did not have an ultimatum.

There was a great, wet plopping sound, like the sound of bare footsteps trudging through thick, rainwater drenched mud and Reaver looked behind him, his pistol brandished high in the air.

He caught a glimpse of the Crawler as it vanished, leaving behind a smoky darkness that set solidly in the air before being carried by some sort of wind.

"_We have waited… _centuries _for you…" _Said the Crawler. Reaver moved towards the center of the room, his eyes looking angrily around, the broken parts of himself that had shattered during the torture of the Crawler, coming back together seamlessly, as if sewed by some excellent seamstress.

He regained himself, his eyes closing, his breathing steady once more.

"_Such a commotion, you've caused, princess," _He thought to himself, severing the emotional connection he had just attached to Naveena by calling her by name. _"I do expect to be fully remunerated for my services once all this shadowy claptrap is over and done with."_

"Did you really?" He asked, knowing the Crawler was there, somewhere. For some reason, unknown to him, he felt like taunting the ugly thing. "I do hope you and your _children _had a good party or two, I imagine that it's dreadfully _droll _around here."

The tar shot upwards, like a fountain, and Reaver stepped backwards, preparing his Dragonstomper .48 by reloading it, the bullets rolling easily over his palm. As he always had, he enjoyed the adrenaline that pushed through his veins before a good scrap.

Shadows, the Children, poured from the pools of tar by the dozens, flaunting swords not made of steel, or silver, but something much solider.

Rolling backwards to get away from the shadows quickly, Reaver steadied his hand and shot, catching two of his enemies in one, brilliant blow. Smirking to himself, in that same, self-satisfied way that always preceded him, he shot again, watching as they crumbled away in midair.

"_The Children hurt! They bring death to your kingdom! They bring destruction and death upon all you've ever known!"_

The Children caught him slightly, slashing their swords across his exquisite waistcoat. Reaver made a disagreeable sound, smacking the shadow across the face with the butt of his Dragonstomper. The smirk on his countenance grew wider and wider, twisting his cheeks in that wolfish manner of his.

He continued to blast through the seemingly endless battalion of shadows, until they had all turned into smoke at his hands. Brushing a few strands of inky hair that had found their way out of his perfected and sculpted piece of art behind his ears, Reaver awaited whatever other challenge the Crawler would throw at him.

And, yes, he did so _stylishly._

Moving out of the way, he watched with slight eagerness in his features as the tar flourished in the middle of the room, spanning out like the flower of a big, black rose, covered in some of the purple shimmer that had been present in those blasted fields. With slight horror, Reaver watched as orbs, like little violet fireflies, flung themselves from the middle of the black rose, gravitating towards the raptor like statues that had been standing guard the entire time.

"_They have bodies now! Bodies… can tear you asunder!"_

Suddenly, they rumbled to life, moving stiffly as though they had awoken from a long, centuries-long, slumber. Reaver stiffened, watching as four of those raptor statues unveiled long, sharp swords that were attached to their arms. He shot at them the smoke of his pistol rising in the air as one of the statues lumbered backwards slightly, struck by the power of the Dragonstomper .48.

Reaver, rolled backwards as two of the statues lumbered towards him, shooting at them and, being the ex-Pirate King, never missing once. A third statue found his way behind him, and gyrated its body, swinging the swords at him in a motion that almost made it appear as though it were dancing. One of the blades found its mark, and Reaver was sent staggering backwards, tripping over his feet. Reaver managed to get himself back up before falling to the ground, narrowly avoiding yet another attack from one of those horrid blades.

He shot again, and watched as one of the raptors stood still, before finally crumbling away, pieces of the former statue clanking loudly against the ruined ground. Reaver rolled, and then shot, and then repeated that. He watched as another statue fell apart thanks to him, and the pieces of both defeated statues crumbled away, like a sand sculpture.

Faced with the last two statues, Reaver felt himself beginning to grow incredibly tired, he gasped for a bit of breath, rosy lips parted. The blades of one of those avians cut him, ripping a long, elongated hole in the sleeve of his shirt. Suddenly, a ridiculous idea struck Reaver.

Rolling in between the two raptors, Reaver crouched low to the ground, and waited, watching as the two statues attacked each other, the blades hovering above him as they ripped each other apart. The statues stiffened again, and crumbled, collapsing to the ground, defeated.

Reaver rose again, palms spread out against the flagstones, his head turned towards the captured form of the princess, and he watched, with ever-growing awe as the tar let go of its hold on her and she fell to her knees, heaving slightly.

_"The Guardian will protect us..." _The Crawler said, and all of the tar that was left from the battles, turned towards a different statue.

It appeared to be a hooded man with wings similar to those of an angel's. They waved outwards, the splayed feathers were gilded, and highly detailed. The hooded man held a scythe, as though he were some Grim Reaper character, and waved it around as he was given animation. Every movement he made was characterized by a groaning sound, the stress of slightly rusted limbs as they moved unnaturally about.

The Guardian lumbered towards him, the sound of his moaning limbs making every moment of his walking terrifying, strange. Suddenly, the monster stomped, and a fissure of sorts, a crack in the archaic tile jumped towards Reaver at a frightening pace. The fissure gleamed with a purple shimmer, and he rolled expertly out of the way, watching as the crack vanished, leaving no trace of it having ever been there.

Reaver shot at it, and his bullets almost seemed to deflect off the surface of the Guardian's golden skin. The eyes of the Guardian, indigo-colored, narrow things, seemed to pierce Reaver's soul.

The other hand, the one that did not hold the dastardly scythe, was raised quickly into the air. The slithering sound, the one that had startled both Reaver and Naveena mere hours before, resounded through the air like a death rattle, and the black tar crawled across the flagstones, reaching towards Reaver with greedy fingers.

A fountain of ravens burst forth from the tar, becoming the little black shadows that Reaver so detested. They flourished swords at him, and Reaver, with growing annoyance at the bastardly things, attacked them, forgetting almost about the Guardian. It was a tactic, one that Reaver failed to recognize immediately, a tactic to try and distract him while the bigger threat thought of something more creative.

_"The Children hurt! They are angry!"_

Reaver blasted through the shadows, while the Guardian found his way behind him, and after defeating the last of those damned impish monsters, felt the sting of the Guardian's scythe hitting his back. The attack flung him forward, and Reaver tried desperately to scramble to his feet, but the Guardian was too quick. It attacked him again, and he skittered across the floor, cursing his own idiocy under his breath.

While on the ground, his arm folded underneath him, and his own fatigue beginning to overtake him, Reaver looked up at the Guardian as he raised his scythe, high above his head, preparing to do something similar to publicly executing Reaver. It was then, that a ball of black and white fur, a bullet of sorts, jumped upwards and snapped at the Guardian's neck.

Ace, who had been at his mistress' side during Reaver's plight with the Darkness, had seen Reaver's current dilemma, and knowing that Naveena wouldn't have wanted the man dead, (Even though, previously, she had.) he proceeded to attack the Guardian.

Teeth latching onto the golden neck of the Guardian, Ace held on tightly to him. The Guardian, distracted from his previous attempt to try and end Reaver's long-lived and highly scandalous life, waved wildly around in an attempt to throw off the mutt. However, metal is not the same as skin, and easily, very easily, the Guardian was able to throw Ace off of him.

But it was enough time for Reaver to get back on his feet. Ace's body landed on the ground with a loud thud and the Hero of Skill continued his barrage against the Guardian, finger pressed tightly against the trigger of the Dragonstomper .48. The Guardian's movements became slower, his wave of the scythe became a little less exuberant, and finally, after many bullets, the Guardian fell just as the other members of the Darkness fell.

As his body crumbled away to ash, Reaver stood there, his shoulders shaking with each intake of breath, his eyes wild with enthusiasm and triumph and finally, after a few moments, the deviant turned to Naveena.

The tar left her skin completely, leaving her, though she was crumpled on the ground, arms splayed out above her. Reaver, slowly, with an elegant gait, walked to her side, a small but strained smirk on his lips upon seeing the usually prideful princess at his mercy. Her dog limped over to them, sniffing his mistress' face, and whimpering.

"My dear princess-" He started, attempting to pick her up, and she gave a sudden, loud gasp, her fingers jumping to the bunch of cloth at his throat, tangling them in his cravat. Reaver stopped, his eyes widening as she lifted her head up to look at him.

The skin around her ultramarine eyes was black, and cracked, with thin purple veins visible within the darkness of her eyes.

"I..." She began, her voice was cracked as well, tired. "I can't see!"

_"She is ours... She is ours... She is ours..." _The Crawler said. _"She is ours... She is ours..."_

"Reaver," She choked on his name, a sob starting in the back of her throat. "Reaver, please, please don't leave me here. I can't see! I can't see!"

Her eyes were sightless orbs staring at him.

_"She is ours..."_

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**And yeah. I did the last quarter of this on Wordpad, and while I was supposed to be working so mind the mistakes! :-D**

**Feedback is appreciated!**


	11. His Mirages, Her Blindness

Avarice

Chapter 11: His Mirages, Her Blindness

_Did we believe,_

_The cry of the leaves?_

_Did we regret?_

_Did we forget?_

_Oren Lavie- "A Dance Around the Memory Tree"_

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_

Naveena held onto Reaver's cravat tightly, her sweaty fingers wrapped in the expensive cloth, holding too harshly, as if letting go of Reaver would bring about her own death. She held close to him, and Reaver, in any other moment in time, would have enjoyed such a feeling of closeness, especially from someone who had _tried _so hard to vehemently deny herself the _pleasure, _but this heavy tiredness had been pulled over him, the lids of his eyes drooping lazily.

"Please… please don't leave me…" Naveena cried into his shirt, her sightless, cracked eyes buried in folds of cloth. Reaver's head dipped slightly, and he clutched onto Naveena's shoulder to prevent himself from passing out.

"_The eyes are ours…" _There were more voices now, than just the Crawler's. They sounded like a group of slithering snakes, gliding over piles of stones. _"The eyes are ours…"_

Ace whimpered beside the two, and lowered his head. They walked through the halls, a sort of gray mist pressed all around them, as though the temple were attempting to conceal them from the exit. Naveena choked on her sobs, closing her blinded eyes, flinching as she did so, as though it pained her.

"_Her sight is ours…"_

Reaver tripped slightly, and Naveena held even more firmly onto him, startled by the sudden movement.

"You… you _can _hear him, can't you…? I… I know… I know I'm not _insane." _She said, her voice muffled by his chest. Her tears were staining his expensive clothes, Reaver noticed, distantly. For some reason or another, he didn't wrench her away from him, as he would have to any other woman that insisted on clinging to him, as if he _meant _something to them. Or she to _him._

"_Hahaha…" _The Crawler laughed, and it echoed all around them, feeling close by, and yet far away, all at the same time. Reaver found his way, with Naveena and her constant companion, through a doorway. A dusty breeze buffeted his cheeks as they entered a slightly long hallway. But… he could see light at the end, a glimmer of sorts, something light brown.

The hot air was all around, and the vast desert stretched out in front of them, the sun reflecting off the grains of sand, slightly clouded by a mist of sand that was carried by a harsh, unwavering wind. Naveena pressed closer to him, shifting her head to look out, though she could not see. Her closed eyes opened, the sightless blue orbs unfocused.

"Are we… in the desert?" Her voice trembled, slightly, as though she was carrying only a small shred of hope with her. "Did we… did we escape?"

"Yes." Reaver answered, curtly. He felt lazy in this heat, and wanted nothing more than to lie down and bake in the rays of the sun. There was no way, absolutely no way that he could possibly continue. But he had to. He couldn't die _here, _not after all these centuries of living, all these… _lives _he had lived. Naveena licked her lips, a sting present there on the chapped skin.

"What… what do you see?" It seemed to pain her, to ask what he could see; it was a stab to her fragile pride, and it hurt her, even more, to realize just how incredibly useless she was right now.

Most of all, however, she was terrified. Terrified of being like this forever, of being like Theresa, perhaps. And she was horrified of the idea that Reaver, this deviant who cared nothing except for himself, would leave her in the desert. She couldn't die.

She couldn't die. He couldn't die. And it was something they both feared at the moment: Death. But they were leaving Him behind, Him, with his six beetle-black eyes and His stretched grey skin.

"There's a wonderful, magnificent desert ahead of us, and it will take _hours, _if not _days _to cross the blasted thing." Was the fop's crisp, clear-cut and frank reply. He continued to walk, every step feeling as though he had a ball-and-chain attached to his ankles. Beside him, Naveena tried to evenly put one foot in front of the other, her body weighing down heavily on her as she walked.

They approached a large staircase, and Reaver, his grip tightening ever so slightly on Naveena as he approached them, muttered, in a bored tone, "Steps, ahead."

"G-Great…" Naveena stuttered, her eyes fluttered closed again, and Reaver made no move to help her, except to keep holding her hand as she tried to walk up the steps. Her feet bumped into the tops of the steps and once or twice, she nearly fell backwards, unable to stabilize herself on the steps. Reaver watched her with half-lidded eyes, his shoulders sinking as they reached the top of the staircase.

"There's a statue, in the distance." His eyes moved over the dunes of sand and craggy mountains. The statue appeared to be like a bust, and the shadow dwarfed the two Heroes in comparison. "Come on, _mon belle."_

He shifted her arm, so it swung around his shoulders, and the two continued onwards. Reaver's lids continued to droop, and very nearly he fell forward, onto the staircase in front of him. He was exhausted, tired, wanted to drop to the floor and stay there forever. Naveena seemed to be even more tired than him, and suddenly, she sunk to her knees, becoming like a heavy weight, and Reaver tried to hold her up, but she refused to get up.

"I…" She started, gasping for breath, licking her lips again. They stung. "Hold on… give me a moment…" She coughed, a splattering cough, and she tried to get up.

"Come on, on we go, can't lay around all day," Reaver tried to lift her up, again. "My dear, I do suggest avoiding sweets for awhile."

"I said… hold on…" She coughed, again. "I… I can't…"

She leaned against him for support, needing some measure of stability upon which she could settle herself.

"You owe me, still, princess. I certainly can't leave you to die in this _wasteland. _It does one good to have leverage over a monarch, after all…" He held onto her shoulders tightly, a great thirst gripping him and her as they walked over the Shifting Sands, their feet slipping as they moved about in the hot, humid heat.

Time crawled by slowly, and it was just them, the deviant and the revolutionary, two people crossing the desert.

"I… hear a buzzing…" Said Naveena, after awhile of walking slowly and tiredly around, the statue never seeming to grow bigger as they moved towards it. "What… do you… see anything?"

Ahead of them, a little dot in the distance, Reaver could see something most peculiar. It was a winged-back chair, and someone was sitting in it, their long legs crossed, a cup held in their hands. It had to be a mirage, Reaver thought to himself, such a thought of someone sitting in the desert was ludicrous. When he approached the sitting person, his fears were realized.

"_You promised you would leave her be," _Said Sparrow, shaking her fiery ringlets. _"You promised you would keep her safe. Liar."_

"The buzzing… it's louder…"

"It's nothing, my kitten." He replied, as they passed Sparrow. The dead woman drank the cup of tea in her hands. "Simply a trick of the light. Such is imaginable in this damned desert."

"_She curses your name, deep, deep inside. She hates you for not saving her in time!" _It was the Crawler now, and Naveena stiffened beside him, shaking her head wildly.

"No, no, no," She whimpered, and Ace pressed close beside her, his fur brushing against her striped tights. "He's here. You… you can hear him… right?"

There was a small sound behind them, and Reaver's head swiveled around just as the mirage of Sparrow exploded into darkness, and the area around them become seeped in a sort of grayscale. Naveena gasped,

"What is… what is going on…? You're… lying to me, aren't you? There's something there!" She looked up, searching for Reaver's face, though she dared not reach up to find him. Reaver glanced at her, slightly annoyed.

"Quiet, silly girl. There is nothing there." He pressed a hand to his forehead, wiping away beads of sweat with a gloved hand. Reaver pulled her along, guiding her, listening to familiar screams as they went through a tunnel of grey. An unfortunate darkness pressed around them again, and then,

"_Such a burden she is! You want to abandon her, to move on with your life as you always have! Pretender! We know how tainted you are!"_

"I can hear him…" Naveena began to tremble, and her eyes stung harshly in the sun. "I can hear him…"

Reaver's lips were caked dry with a dryness he could not be rid of, and Naveena was shaking her head over and over again, as if doing so would banish the Crawler from her mind. The grayscale around them seemed warped somehow, by some strange, omniscient force as they continued onwards. Naveena continued to choke on her own cries, the tears falling from her restless eyes, and she still clung tightly to Reaver as though he were Ben Finn, or Walter, or someone she could actually _trust._

"_All it took was one, unfortunate, horrible wish…"_

Reaver froze, as did Naveena, and the words tumbled from the revolutionary's lips, "That buzzing! There… there it is again! Can you hear… it?"

Oh, oh, he could hear it. But the buzzing Naveena was hearing had formed into desperate, unfortunate words in Reaver's ears, taking the guise of a spirit of sorts. Achingly, Reaver turned his head to look at the place in the desert where the familiar voice had come from. The woman had delicate ankles, and was thin, and the gold hair that fell untied around her shoulders was the hair that Reaver had kissed many times before.

She was looking at him with those sad, sad eyes of hers.

"_I knew it was you. I knew it the second those monsters descended upon our home, the second they took my life from me, my youth from me, and then… I blamed you."_

Reaver, blindly followed Sibyl as she turned around. Something thick like blood, and black like his own heart melted off of her. She wasn't real, he tried to convince himself. There was nothing real about this mirage, this… monstrosity. Ace growled, as though he could see Sibyl just as Reaver could.

"Ace… Ace, can you hear it?" Reaver had nearly forgotten about the redhead he was holding in his arms, and his exhaustion.

"_I blamed you. I hated you. And as you held me in your arms, as my life seeped slowly away from me… oh how I had wanted to spit in your face, to kill you just as you had killed me…"_

He was close to her now, so close, his dry, cracking lips parted. The deviant outstretched his hand towards the spirit, touching her shoulder.

Suddenly, it felt as though someone had taken two small knives and stabbed his eyes.

"_ARE YOU BLIND, YET? ARE YOU BLIND?"_

And the two Heroes fell into the sand, underneath the sweltering sun.

One blind, the other not.

One afraid, the other shattered.

One a princess, the other a deviant.

One, a hero, the other, a Hero.

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**Short chapter, I know, I'm sorry! Next is Aurora!**

**Feedback is appreciated!**


	12. Conquest

Avarice

Chapter 12: Conquest

_Burn baby, burn burn,_

_You make me hot, HOT!_

_Burn baby, burn burn,_

_You make me hot, HOT!_

_Jeffree Star – "Love Rhymes With Fuck You"_

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_

"Will she be alright?" A voice, vaguely familiar and entirely annoying.

"We must tend to her," Another voice, different this time, not so familiar. A woman's, an older one's. "The other… he is strange. His body heals faster than it should… he could be fine. He may not be fine."

A different voice once more, gruffer, older, "Ruddy bastard. Should've left him in the desert." Reaver decided that he did not like this voice. Not. One. Bit.

"And what would that have accomplished?" This was the voice of another woman. It was raspy, and her vowels seemed to lilt with an accent. "We help everyone from the Darkness, regardless of what they have done."

Reaver tried to grope for his Dragonstomper, but he couldn't move anything, much less lift a limb. He stirred slightly, eyelids fluttering above his eyes.

He could see her face again, her blue eyes, her small chin…

"Sibyl…" He murmured.

"What the bloody hell is he going on about?" Said Ben Finn. He was bent over the still body of Naveena, while Mara, the priestess, worked her magic, waving hands over her closed eyes. Walter and Kalin stood, standing beside each other, attention drawn to Reaver's thoughtless babbling in his sleep.

"Balls if I know," Replied Walter, angrily. His eyes narrowed as they looked upon Reaver's laying form. "But he better not wake up, not if he knows what's good for him." The threat was there, high in Walter's voice, plain for all to hear. Mara rolled her eyes, and Kalin looked at the man with slightly piqued interest. She had heard of Reaver, in passing, and the tales that had been whispered in her ears were devilish ones indeed. They were tales of the man's corruption, of his abuse, and of his help to Logan.

"Can he be trusted?" She inquired, pinched eyes searching Walter's. "He helped King Logan before defecting to the revolution, did he not?"

Walter sniffed, an action which spoke highly of how much he _distrusted _the industrialist, "Only because it was in his interest. Man's a bloody tyrant within himself."

"My dear, sweet Walter," Reaver was able to crack open his eyes. In the dim light of the temple, they appeared even darker than they would usually be. The effect was unsettling, at least, for the grizzled mentor. "I cannot bear to listen to those dreadful words! How _droll _of you to talk about me behind my back, with me in earshot!"

Ace, that stupid but endearing little collie, nudged at Reaver's hand. And, without the desire nor strength to slap away the mutt's cold little nose, the deviant wrinkled his nose. He was unsure of where he was, but it seemed to be a temple.

They had made it through the desert, then. Reaver shot Naveena's still body a gaze filled with little care for the princess's well-being. Of course she was still alive, even if it appeared as though death had gripped her throat with its icy little fingers and was holding her high in the air, shaking her relentlessly. Walter shot the deviant a look full of repugnance and distaste, while Ben and the priestess doted over Naveena. The poor soldier, why, his face was simply _stricken _with anxiety.

"_So that's how it is, hm?" _Reaver wondered to himself, letting the smallest bit of a smirk touch his lips. _"Stupid boy. Our lovely little glace reine, such a frigid woman she is."_

"Shoo, you mongrel." Reaver tutted, when Ace dared to _breathe _on him. The dog persisted however, barking indignantly at him as though it seemed weird or stupid to do just what Reaver had asked. Ace's persistent panting was the only sound that permeated inside the temple as Reaver rose slowly into a sitting position. Sweat clung to every inch of his skin, beads of sweat rolled from his forehead to the lower half of his neck, and his clothes were uncomfortable.

"She is _alive, _yes?" He was looking at Naveena, eyes traveling across the outline of the prone form. "I had the most delightful dream that both of us had been murdered in the desert by some strange little bone-picker." Trying to force the sight of Sibyl from his mind, he closed his eyes. He could still feel the stabbing pain, like sharp little pinpricks on the inside of his eyeballs.

"She is _fortunate _to be alive." The strange, bald woman stepped forward, pushing past a slightly enraged Walter.

Her pinched eyes seemed to peer into Reaver's own, as if something within the brown depths intrigued her, pulling at her curiosity. "My name is Kalin," Her accent, the one which drawled her consonants and lilted her vowels, was one Reaver had heard before. It was an Auroran's lull, rough and decisive. "And you are in the city of Aurora."

Reaver watched her, throwing on the same smile that he put on for all women or men of reasonable attractiveness.

He took her hand, bent his head over it and brushed his lips against the stretched skin of her knuckles, an act which seemed to disturb Kalin slightly, as her complacent features twisted itself into a horrid scowl, "You may call me Reaver, my dear lady. And may I be so bold as to say that this place is incredibly inhospitable? Monsters running rampant! Disease and destruction taking hold of even the most flawless gem! Why, I've never had such a horrible _avant-propos _in all my life!"

"Will you just _shut up?" _Ben had snarled, still bent over Naveena as though she were a glass statue that had been thrown haphazardly to the ground, shattering into a million glittering pieces.

There was a fire in the eyes that superseded the darkness, a glow completely devoid in Reaver's own.

"Oh," Reaver shrugged, still holding onto Kalin's hand, though the leader of Aurora was trying to snatch it away. "My dear Ben, how _fiery _you get when your loved ones are threatened. It's almost _sickening_ the worry you show for our beloved princess…"

Ben rose sharply to his feet, an angry expression twisting his handsome features, "You—"

"Ben…" Naveena's eyes began to open slowly, little slits of blue that were almost frightening to behold. "Enough… stop fighting…"

The priestess stepped back, bowing her head to Kalin, who in turn bowed hers, before slinking away to some room within the temple. Walter moved past the fuming Ben, to loom over the rebel princess.

"Are you alright?" He managed to say. There was a touch of regret in Walter's eyes, as though he felt bad about not being there for Naveena. Reaver finally let go of Kalin's hand, watching the scene unfold in front of him with slight annoyance, ignoring the viciously vexed gaze of Ben Finn. He brushed a few strands of loose black hair from his eyes, and sat upon the uncomfortable stone slab he'd been resting upon only a few moments ago.

"Walter…" Naveena started. Her voice cracked, and for a moment, there was a tiny glimpse of the small girl who'd sat and listened to Walter's stories about her mother, the Hero Queen. "I'm… sorry, if I hadn't…"

Walter shook his head. A resounding no seemed to sound in the tension around the group. It was not her fault, no, for the separation, nor for her blindness. A small, if unconvinced smile touched the lips of the princess, and she looked past Walter at Ben, and then at Reaver. Their eyes caught, and immediately, Naveena could almost feel the heat against her skin, the sweat, the terror of being blind…

"Thank you," Bade Naveena, though her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. "Reaver. You… you didn't abandon me in the desert…"

"Oh? Then I expect a hefty reward for my services!" Reaver waved this thank you off as though it were an annoying mosquito buzzing about his face. "I desire a mountain of gold coins, _ma belle, _no less than six million, and I _will _be counting each and every one with delicate precision!"

The revolutionary snorted, moving up from the slab. Walter clapped a hand on her shoulder, and Ben, finished with his one-sided staring contest with Reaver, glanced at the princess with enough worry in his eyes to fill the ocean between Aurora and Albion.

Kalin stepped forward, the strange golden bits of her clothes tinkling slightly as she walked. Her pale skin seemed almost luminescent in the light of the lit lanterns, and her muddy eyes seemed to almost glitter as she looked upon the princess, _analyzing _her, _gauging _her.

"It is time, now," The brogue was heavy, and she spoke with her hands, like many leaders do. "That you saw our city."

"The City of Nightmares." Ben quipped, his brows raised.

"Shut up, Ben." Walter snapped, annoyed with the soldier. Ben shrugged, rolling his shoulders slightly and cracking his neck. Reaver stood, sighing, the tallest person in the room. The group moved to a small closed doorway, and Kalin rolled the circular slab sealing it to the side, revealing a narrow hallway lit with flickering candles. Immediately, an almost acrid smell pervaded their senses. It was a smell that all four of the Albionites were intimately familiar with: Death.

They went out of the temple, trying desperately to ignore the smell of destruction, of death, but it followed behind them closely, like a gnat that just would not go way. They were greeted with an almost perverse sight.

The night sky shrouded the entire city in darkness, but the light of the full moon made it easy to see an outline of Aurora. There were small clay hovels built around the temple, and many were destroyed, caved in on itself. Pieces of paper were posted all around, and shards of pots scattered amidst the city. If Naveena, or any of her companions for that matter had thought Industrial was bad, they saw that this place was worse. Naveena, Ben, Walter and Reaver stared out at the destruction. Three of the four were devastated at the abomination of a city. The fourth mused about how bored he was.

"The Crawler did this." Said Kalin. She led them to a small triangular shaped cliff that was between the twin flights of stairs. "The being which you fought in the caves. It appeared five years ago, bring darkness and death. The few of us who still live…"

She bent her head, her eyes snapping shut, as though a painful memory had resurfaced inside of her.

"Have known nothing but fear since."

Ace whined, and sat beside Kalin, pressing his wet nose against her hand. Kalin's eyes reopened, and she stroked the collie with a cold hand. The leader's eyes scanned her broken city, before turning back to the group of revolutionaries, and continuing,

"We never know when it will come. And we cannot hope to defeat the creature and its spawn without an army, even with someone like you on our side."

Naveena frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. It was troubling, this news. She had come to Aurora in search of allies and had instead found a desiccated corpse, the ravens still picking off the meat. Ben sighed and pushed back strands of blond hair with a filthy hand. Walter watched Kalin with heavy bags under his eyes. And Reaver… Reaver had chuckled malignly, a source of white noise.

"Ben Finn, and Sir Walter speak most highly of you," Kalin stated. Her voice was just as strong as her determination, her survival instinct, and her leadership skills. "But you are not the first savior to come here."

At this revelation, Kalin's eyes seemed to narrow, and a look of complete disgust and hate overtook her features. It was frightening, the lack of any other emotion on her face. Naveena had no doubt that whomever had earned her ire deserved it, for the hatred on Kalin's face was nearly overwhelming.

"His name was Logan," She continued, voice dripping with an intangible venom. Naveena's arms fell from their position at her chest, and everyone beside the princess stiffened slightly, sans Reaver who was picking at the dirt under his manicured nails. "The King of Albion."

"Logan?" Naveena whispered, the name pouring forth from her mouth. It was impossible! There was no way that her brother had been here! It didn't seem… "Are you sure?" She questioned, her tone inquiring and curious. Kalin looked at her, with sympathetic eyes.

Ben was the one to break the silence, "Seems your big brother's been keeping secrets. He used to go on expeditions all the time, remember? Until about… four years ago."

"He must have been here, then." Naveena nodded, though a flash of betrayal and hurt crossed her face. She disliked any mention of her brother. The choice he gave her months ago haunted her dreams still and curdled her blood. "Please, continue, Kalin."

The Auroran bowed her head, and there was the jingling of the golden embellishments on her clothes as she moved, the only noise amongst the quiet and nearly silent group, "He too, faced the Crawler. He saw all his soldiers killed by the darkness and nearly died himself. But he survived…" Her eyes darkened here, and the disturbing look of anger flashed in her eyes like a wildfire. "Thanks to our care." Kalin's teeth ground out the last sentence as though doing so involved her coughing up all of her organs.

Her hands balled up into fists, and she forced her head to the side. The destroyed Aurora, and the light of the moon cast her features into a ghastly, painted profile. There seemed to be a great amount of tragedy buried deep within her, and speaking of Logan, of her betrayer seemed to tear her emotions asunder.

When her lips moved, Naveena noticed the edges of her mouth tighten into sharp, stressed lines, "He left with a promise. That he would return with an army and save us from the Crawler."

Kalin's eyes closed shut, and when they opened, she looked straight into Naveena's blue eyes, and murmured a final, damning sentence, "We never saw him again."

Finally, she gestured to the destruction behind her, and Walter, Naveena, Ben and Reaver, whose attention was finally garnered, looked out at the rubble. Her arms and hands splayed out beside her, Kalin spoke,

"King Logan did not cause this. But he did nothing to stop it. Promise me that you will rebuild Aurora, that you will protect it and make it a part of Albion." They were the words of someone desperate to protect their city, their livelihood.

Naveena, moved by the words and the inaction of her own brother, bent her head low, as if in reverence, and outstretched a hand, "I promise."

Kalin clasped the hand, and Naveena noticed how much larger Kalin's hands were than her own.

"Then let us go to war."

* * *

Naveena was running.

It was a strange sort of running, the kind you did as a child, all giggling and laughing, running from your pursuit because you saw it as a game, and not as something more serious. Her hair was long and tied into braided pigtails, and it was brown, unlike the dyed reds she had grown accustomed to seeing her hair in. And the cream and beige dress she was dressed in! Why, it was something _Jasper _would've picked out for her.

She had always hated dresses. So impractical, so… _royal. _Trousers were much more comfortable.

The little girl swatted blindly at the branches overhead. She was unfamiliar with the area, the forest was strange and ethereal, so unlike the Castle Gardens. So unlike any place she had ever been. And where were her shoes? The pine needles that blanketed the ground dug themselves into the soles of her bare feet, and the sharp end of a branch ripped part of her dress, revealing one of the many lacy layers.

"…_Veena…Nav…een…a…" _There! A whisper! Like the sound of a sparrow singing sweetly in the trees, or the beating of a seraph's wings!

Naveena looked up, childish blue eyes wide as they fell upon a familiar figure. The girl waddled to the feet of her mother, hugged the legs, felt the familial, lovely feeling of Sparrow's long fingers through her somehow now unbraided and tangled hair.

"_Naveena… look… at… me…" _

Two dainty hands cupped the baby-smooth cheeks of the little girl, tilting her face upwards. Naveena, who had squeezed her eyes shut and reveled in the familiarity of her mother, slowly looked upwards, her gaze traveling over the harsh, angled curves of her mother's body…

To the six-eyed face of the Crawler.

"_THE SIGHT IS OURS!" _The Crawler lunged forward, dainty hands of her mother now vicious, ferocious claws reaching for her. Naveena, no longer a little girl and now the redheaded revolutionary threw herself backwards, falling on her elbows before rushing to her feet. The Crawler's head tilted to the side, as if it were amused with such a clumsy being, but it rushed forward, and Naveena turned and bolted.

She ran wildly, now, through the unfamiliar maze of a forest, and could hear with growing clarity the cackle of the Crawler, the taunts. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, falling down her cheeks as she ran. Black, clawed hands pulled viciously at her legs and arms. Impish creatures watched her with wide, uneasy eyes.

Slowly, it began to rain. Droplets of water melted down her shirt, painted her lips and chin, mixed with the saltiness of her tears. The Crawler's cackles and taunts grew louder and louder, like the beating of some great war drums.

Her foot caught with a root, and Naveena fell amidst a bed of pine, and there was the little girl again, hair all brown and twin braids. She cried, the hands pulled at her, beckoned her, there were dainty little hands by her mouth and she tried to bite at them, teeth tearing into flesh—

"My dear, I _do _enjoy a good nip every now and then but _really."_

Naveena's eyes snapped open, and she thrust herself upward, chest quivering as she gasped for breath, beads of perspiration dotting her hairline. There were hands at her shoulders, strong, long-fingered hands with well manicured nails. She looked up at Reaver, who was watching her with the slightest of curiosity in her eyes, and she forced her gaze away from him, fingers tangling themselves in the coverlets of her blankets. The ship, one of Aurora's few left, rocked from side-to-side.

"What are you doing in my room, Reaver?" Her lips were cracked, and she drew them in for a moment, reviving them with a sweet wetness. Her lynx-like companion removed his hands from her shoulders, before going to sit in one of the chairs of the room. Reaver was smirking at her, fingers laced in front of him as he crossed his legs.

"Your thrashing woke me up. For a few blissful moments I had thought you'd taken that boorish little soldier to your bed." He sighed, a sort of tone between relieved and annoyed. "Alas, you were only having a horrid nightmare."

"I thought I was still having the nightmare." She fixed him with a pointed glare, her blue eyes like chips of ice. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she stood, dressed in nothing but her undergarments. It took her a moment to realize this, and even then, Reaver had gotten quite the eyeful of her _goods, _as it were.

Her cheeks flushed red, and she squeaked, before grabbing the sheets and attempting to cover herself with them. But Reaver had moved quickly from the chair, hands wrapping around Naveena's wrists, like iron weights or manacles of his own contrivance. Naveena pulled him towards her, unintentionally in an attempt to free herself, the corners of the dirty yellowing sheets falling from her fingers to crumple at their feet.

"Let go of me." The revolutionary hissed, angrily. Reaver chuckled, darkly, before gingerly placing a kiss on her lips. It was sweet, like honey or the forbidden fruit, and when he tilted his head, demanding deeper access, Naveena pulled back.

"Go away, Reaver." She repeated, and her gaze held his own. The dark-haired man pushed her into the wall, trapping her with his arms as they slammed into the area beside her head. A sensation so similar and synonymous with fear ran down her naked spine.

"But you _owe _me, _ma belle, _for saving your life…" His eyes flicked downwards, and Naveena's hands twitched as he leaned forward, nipping at her collarbone with sharp, pointed teeth. The princess gasped, and she could feel the deviant's smirk against her skin. Something flared inside of her, however, and she shoved him away, only to lace her fingers behind his neck, claiming his lips with her own. There was a certain need in her movements, a desire fueled only by lust, not love nor acceptance or even approval.

She could feel Reaver's smile as he guided her to bed, pulling her on top of him. Her fingers were braced against his shoulders, nails digging into the thin cloth of his shirt. When she broke the kiss, a thin line of saliva joined them together, and she gasped for air as she straddled him. She wiped away the strange wet line away with her wrist. That panting was the only sound between the two of them, until Reaver purred, in that high, alluring voice of his,

"I always knew you were such a _naughty _princess."

His fingers brushed against the straps of her brassiere, finding their way underneath them. Naveena was watching him, but the second his fingers were hooked underneath the straps of her bra, a certain revelation crossed her face and she clambered off of him, her face dark with a fury that would have frightened even the hardest of hearts.

But it only annoyed Reaver because he had no heart to speak of.

One of Naveena's straps slid down her arm, and she furiously drew it back to its rightful place.

"Get out." She snarled, pointing to the door. And then, "You're using me. Get out."

Reaver settled himself into a sitting position, a feigned look of complete innocence on his face, "Using _you? _Princess, if that were so then everyone uses each other, no?"

He gestured back to himself, that smoldering look on his face, "Come now, let us finish what we've started, hm? I find myself… _dissatisfied."_

Naveena, finding that there was an empty vase on the nightstand beside her bed grabbed it in her fury, throwing it blindingly at Reaver. With the reflexes of a cat, Reaver knocked it away with the back of his hand, sending the vase crashing to the floor, where it shattered, fragments scattering every which way. Reaver snorted at the pathetic attempt to do him harm, but his eyes were drawn to the now silent figure of Naveena.

The girl, with hair just as short as her temper, was looking to the side, her teeth ravaging her bottom lips, nails digging into her palms. And, as though she could sense his gaze on her, she murmured,

"Am I just another conquest of yours, Reaver?"

Her question had come completely out of the blue, hitting the cad like a ton of bricks. After a few seconds, her head whipped around to look at him, and if looks could kill, Reaver would have been burned at the stake, reborn and be burned again.

His lips only curled into a wolfish, foppish smile. Reaver could not give her a real answer, not without jeopardizing a small chance at getting the gratification he had come to get in the first place, but that smile of his was all the answer that Naveena needed.

"Then get out." She stated, looking down. Her heart hammered in her chest. Feelings of lust and guilt pulled at her emotions like annoying fans. "And don't come back until you decide I'm not just another conquest."

Ah! A chance! But Reaver stood up, feeling the need to just _take _what he knew was his, but this princess, this little nestling of Sparrow's had _intrigued _him, in a way he didn't think could be possible. So many possibilities opened themselves up to him. He could get more than a foothold in the Court, he could have the blasted _Queen of Albion _in his pocket if he played his cards right, which he always did, and better yet, he could use this moment to his advantage. Blackmail was always so delicious.

The deviant bent himself slightly at the hip, always loyal to whatever could benefit him, and left, closing the door shut behind him, where it locked with a slight click.

As soon as he was gone, Naveena collapsed onto the bed. What had she done? She had _betrayed _Elliot. She had betrayed his trust, his love, their marriage. And she had invited Reaver to engage in an affair with her.

Naveena buried her face in her hands, and tried to shake off the butterflies that roiled in her stomach. Not now, she reminded herself. She could not think about such affairs now.

It was time for the revolution to come to its fruition.

* * *

**FF net is being glitchy. Apparently I can't edit my stories, which is why this took so long. (On the other hand, the next chapter will come by much quicker!)**

**Also, three words. Dragon Age 2. It came out March 8****th****, and took over my life. Expect shitloads of Dragon Age fanfic, lol. **

**I will admit, the next chapter will be mostly the siege of Bowerstone. After that, however, there will be drastic changes from the Canon Universe. So, no more looking up Let's Plays for me! Woop!**

**Feedback is appreciated, as always!**


	13. The Battle For Albion

Avarice

Chapter 13: The Battle For Albion

_You say you want a revolution,_

_Well, you know,_

_We all want to change the world._

"_Revolution" – The Beatles_

* * *

In the morning, Naveena emerged from her cabin, Ace at her heels, her weapons bouncing against her legs. It was a cloudy day, the sun hid behind the clouds as though he knew, as well as the people aboard the Auroran ship, of what was to happen soon. Naveena abruptly stopped, her eyes roving over the scene in front of her.

Page and Ben were bent over a map, arguing over some minor detail with the plan. Kalin watched the two, a hand on her hip, an obvious look of annoyance crossing over her painted features. Sabine whacked his staff against the deck, and Page's caramel eyes flicked towards him for a second. Walter stood, in obvious discomfort, next to Reaver, who had looked over to see the future Queen of Albion.

Their gazes locked, and a chill ran vicariously down Naveena's spine as she recalled the previous night. Willing herself to move, Naveena continued walking, and those crowded around the map turned to face their leader, eyes steeled with varying degrees of determination, and hope.

It gave Naveena great gratification to know that she brought them hope. Hope was what they needed, right now, in these times.

Hope was what she could give them. Hope, fulfillment and promises kept.

She stood beside Reaver, a fact that made her back feel as though it were made of iron, and the withering glare she shot him made him smirk a little. If there was one thing the revolutionary would not do, it would be to show fear. Naveena could not, nor would not, allow him the satisfaction of knowing that he had a hold on her. That he had something so sickeningly similar to _control _over her.

The feelings she felt last night seethed inside of her stomach, but she packed them down into a hot coal within her intestines, and offered Page a brusque, "Do we have a plan?"

Page nodded, standing to her full height, looming above the map, "I've got it." She glared slightly at Ben, who was watching her with that barely-hidden look of admiration.

She moved a finger about the map, over a part of Bowerstone's sprawling necropolis, "I take a small group of soldiers down this route," Her dark fingers trailed over the said route. "And blow up the west barracks. It will draw their attention and open up the main route." She looked up at Naveena, for confirmation.

Ben waved this plan off, cocking an eyebrow, "How's that better than my idea?"

"We will live longer than a few seconds?" Challenged Kalin, vicariously, hand still on her hip.

"_Oh, _well _now _you're just picking holes."

Sabine whacked his staff against the deck again and Boulder, who had been standing a few feet away from his benefactor, looked up in attention as Sabine spoke, "Give it up _boy. _What I want to know, is what my men need to do."

"That's for the future Queen to decide." Walter, delegating the thought to Naveena, looked over at the princess with a kind, wrinkled smile.

"Decide what you will," Came Reaver's elegant drawl. He watched Naveena with twinkling eyes. "So long as I get to put a bullet in Logan's skull. It will take _weeks _to clean out my ransacked mansion, such an inconvenience shouldn't go unpunished…"

Page, upon hearing Reaver's voice, was viciously reminded of the fact that he was there and frowned. Naveena, her heart sinking horribly as she thought of Logan, and their inevitable confrontation, laced her hands behind her back, bowed her head, and murmured,

"Page knows the city best. We follow her plan."

Ben wrinkled his nose, _"Fine. _I only put my plan forward to annoy her anyway."

At this, the rebel shot the soldier a scornful glare, "I see you've _really _matured on your travels."

A good majority of the revolution's players shook their heads in annoyance at the two, though a playful and mischievous smirk touched Ben Finn's lips. Naveena fixed him with a menacing glower, and he shrugged, in that roguish way of his, the one that had irritated Captain Swift and Walter to no end.

Page gestured to the map and Naveena leaned forward, her hands braced on the wood as the darker-skinned woman continued, "If you'll look at the map, we can go through the details."

"My ships will take you to the beach, here." Kalin said, raspy voice and all, signaling with her thumb to the said beach behind her.

Walter, looking over at the beach, seemed to regard it with a sort of annexed frown, "We can expect heavy mortar fire, but most of Logan's soldiers will be busy dealing with Page and her men."

Sabine pointed at a part of the map, the metals of his clothes jingling with every jerky movement he made, "I want to be in the midst of the smoke, and the fire, and the glory," He fixed his eyes upon Page, and looked around at everyone, a sort of madness buried deep within that wrinkled face. It was a madness associated only with crazy little old men who blew up things and made explosives. "If Page takes the west route, it's only fair I take the east."

Naveena looked around at those who were left. Her, Walter, Ben and Reaver.

"Then the four of us have the center." She announced, smiling.

Reaver gave a derisive snort, "With me on your side, _ma belle, _there is no such thing as losing! Why, the word could very well be struck from that blasted thing known as a dictionary!"

"Your inflated ego could perhaps suffocate them all." Naveena quipped, and an assured smirk spread itself across Page's pretty face.

There was a certain look of annoyance in Reaver's eyes, but he looked partly amused, as he always did with Naveena's clever tongue, "Tsk, my dear. Queens must curb their tongues if they wish to be delightful little rulers. Not that I don't _mind _your tongue…"

"Finish that sentence, Reaver," Walter let out a dangerous snarl. "I dare you."

With a flamboyant flick of his hair, Reaver silenced himself, something which should have been a miracle to all of them. Naveena's spine snapped into straightness, and she continued,

"Then we're agreed. We follow Page's plan. She'll take the west route, and Sabine and his men have the east. Kalin, you will handle the mortars and ships. Reaver, Walter, Ben and I have the center route."

Her fist hovered in the middle of the table, and Naveena exuded a cool confidence, one required of a leader, "For the revolution."

Page was the first to put her fist in. Then came Kalin, and then Sabine, and Ben, then Walter. Finally it was only Reaver who had yet to add to the group of fists. A few lingering seconds seemed to pass, until finally Reaver, wrinkling his nose, pressed a tightly curled fist against the group. Naveena closed her eyes, thought of nothing but victory and then all of the fists were pumped into the air, with a resounding,

"FOR ALBION!"

* * *

There were flames gathered about the front of Bowerstone, and with a quick flick of his wrist, and a single tightly closed eye, Reaver pulled the trigger of his Dragonstomper .48. The pistol's kickback shook his wrist slightly, and one of the Elite Guards slumped to the ground, dead. Naveena was a whirl of reds that ran past him, and with a single swing of her sword, she cut down a guard, a splatter of blood jumping across the contours of her cheeks.

Ben fired his rifle, gasping for breath slightly as they moved through a fog of war, and Walter ran to catch up with Naveena, his own sword outstretched, glinting silver within the darkness. A gaggle of guards ran towards them, and with Reaver and Ben shooting, and Naveena and Walter cutting them down piece-by-piece, the four seemed unstoppable.

"We need to take care of that mortar!" Yelled Walter, as he sliced through one of the guards.

The guard made jerky, uncontrolled movements before collapsing to the ground in a puddle of blood. Naveena dodged a keening blade, and brought a fist full of fire to the guard's face. The man screamed, holding his face as it burned, searing his flesh. Naveena pushed past him, the hilt of her sword gripped with white knuckles. Naveena slice through guard after guard, running up the hill to the gates of Bowerstone with her trusty companions behind her.

Ducking a swing from one of the Elite Guard's swords, Naveena tightened her grip on the sword and brought it up, impaling the man's chin with the kind of grace one would only expect from a Hero. Blood gushed everywhere, soaking Naveena to the bone in its sanguine glory. Reaver shot again, landing an excellent headshot to a second guard, one that had begun lumbering towards Naveena carefully. There was a shuddering gasp, barely heard over the cries and shouts of the people as the guard died. Fire licked at the air, and a few guards set themselves to dousing the flames.

Walter, Ben, Naveena and Reaver stopped by the closed gate, and the mortar, the guards in the front of the Bowerstone gates all killed in their assault. Naveena set to setting the mortar aflame, destroying it expertly. Ben turned to face the shore, and gave a small signal, much like an okay sign. Naveena could make out the ghastly shadow of a ship, thankfully an Auroran ship.

Ben shifted uneasily, and his blue eyes gleamed with something Naveena had never quite seen. He grumbled, his voice low, "Come on, Kalin. Do your stuff."

Suddenly the cannons that had been annexed to the ship exploded, and Naveena, Walter and Reaver managed to get out of the way just in time as the cannonballs ripped through the gates, flinging them open with huge force.

Ben beamed, "That's my girl!"

Walter clapped a hand on Naveena's shoulder, guiding her into the city with a gruff, "We take the fight into the city, now."

A wave of guards jumped forward, all carrying their issued weaponry. Reaver began to shoot, alongside Ben, covering Walter and Naveena as they entered Bowerstone Market. Naveena shouldered one of the guards, causing him to stumble back in surprise, and began firing up her fireball spell.

She shut her eyes, focusing on the Will that ran through her veins, and when she felt nothing but raw power within her hands, she clapped the ground, causing a great ring of fire to jump around her. The flames caught onto the garbs of the guard, and they danced about, attempting to peter out the flame with a frenzy seen only in those who faced death with fear.

Reaver shot two of the flamed guards, and Walter stabbed one, stepping back spryly as he sunk to the floor. The group forced their way into the city, and gathered around the statue in the first section of Bowerstone Market. The statue was that of someone riding the back of a hog, a strange choice in decoration, but whatever.

There were two more guards within the section, and Reaver easily dispatched both of them, remarking on their brutish and stupid nature, though the remark was not heard over the shrieks of the townspeople.

A good part of Bowerstone Market was on fire, set aflame by the destruction of their revolution. With slight horror, Naveena looked upon the dead bodies of some of the townspeople. She worried, and wondered about Elliot, if only for a fleeting second in the midst of the chaos.

"Well, I suppose they were not entirely unprepared." Reaver groused, as the four ran wildly through a labyrinth of burning houses. "Such a shame. I rather enjoy using the element of surprise. In _all _things."

"Now isn't the time, Reaver!" Hissed Naveena, looking angrily over her shoulder at the fop. He shrugged, but his cheeks twisted wolfishly with a charming smile.

The four ran, until they felt the earth shake underneath them. Stopping abruptly, Naveena held out an arm to signal a stop, and looked up at the top of one of the houses within Bowerstone. Suddenly, without warning, the house crumbled apart, and a plume of fire rose wildly from the explosion.

"Get down!" She yelled, and they did, ducking as debris fell all around them, like rain. The sound of the exploding house was loud and terrible, and rang angrily in the shell of their ears.

All of them coughed, as the ash and smoke gathered in a thick, black cloud around them. Naveena's eyes watered, and threatened to spill over. When she dared to open them, she saw none other than Sabine and his manservant, Boulder, emerging from the dark cloud. The little old man with his jingling clothes and gnarled little staff, wore the largest, most ridiculous grin on his face.

She shook her head and Sabine roared, "Is this not the grandest time you ever had! Haha!"

Walter shook his head, whiskers bristling, "Sabine! You almost blew us up!"

"I'll say!" Reaver commented, between fits of coughing.

Sabine, with his wild eyes, looked up at the remnant of the house, "You saw? A glorious beacon of freedom, burning in the night for all the—"

Boulder, waved his tree trunk arms wildly about, and made some strange moaning noise. He looked anxious, and Sabine turned from the remnants to look up at Boulder with narrowed eyes.

"What is it, Boulder?"

There was a sudden whistling noise, and all of them looked around. Sabine, as if realizing something very important, moved quickly, yelling, in a quick voice, "Oh, bloody hell! Move! Move!"

The moment the duo managed to get to safety, there was yet another explosion. A second plume of flame and smoke rose into the air, scattering fresh shrapnel around them once again.

Walter chuckled, his voice amused at the shenanigans of Sabine, "It'll take more than a grenade to finish off that old sod."

Ben, annoyed, growled, "_Meanwhile, _let's do as he says and get moving, shall we?"

"That sounds like an _excellent _idea!" Reaver, tipping the brim of his hat with the barrel of the Dragonstomper .48, sounded as though he would've liked nothing more than to jump back into the chaos of the war.

The four rebels ran through someone's garden, and found themselves in a different cobblestone street, somewhere in the Old Quarter. There was one of Sabine's men, fighting one of the Elite Guard. The dark-skinned man, with as much grace as one would expect from a one-legged cat, fell quickly to the guard, in a pile of crimson, tattered clothes and death throes.

Brandishing his sword, the guard quickly ran his sword through the man's stomach, giving the sword a brutal twist before looking up and receiving an excellent shot to the head from Ben's rifle. Ben, who looked as though someone had kicked a bunny rabbit multiple times, reloaded the rifle, giving the dead guard a reproachful glower as he followed behind Naveena and the others.

They passed by the graveyard, the statue within it a lone looming sentinel as they ran past. Naveena, seeing a few guards ahead, pulled out her rifle, looked down the barrel with one eye shut, aimed and shot. One of the guards fell, blood gushing from the wound in his shoulder as he spun backwards. Another was quickly dispatched by a swift stab from Walter, who grunted and twisted the sword with more relish than Naveena would have expected of her mentor.

It was then that they were met with a larger group, more resistance. It seemed as though the Elite Guard had little care for the townspeople, due to the fact that they ignored the screaming people and the flames that threatened to forever ruin the city.

One of the guards managed to get close enough to Naveena that he swung his sword at her, and the revolutionary grabbed the blade, the edge of it cutting through her gauntlets and into her skin. She grimaced, and the guard, surprised that she attempted such a thing, tried vainly to pull back, but Naveena held tight, and screamed at Reaver to shoot.

Surprisingly, the deviant conceded, pulling the trigger of the Dragonstomper at point blank range. Walter stepped over two bodies, signaling for the other three to hurry it up. They continued their advance towards the Castle, and Naveena felt that she could almost taste victory on the tip of her tongue.

It tasted terrible.

They reached the gates to the castle. More of Sabine's men stood at the ready, shooting down the cobblestone bridge at the makeshift fortifiers that the Elite Guard hid behind. Naveena pressed her back against the walls along with the Dwellers, as did Reaver and Ben.

Walter, who did not have a gun, simply waited, sword brandished and beard bristling with anticipation. Those blue eyes of Naveena's shut for a moment, and she took in a deep breath before turning around the corner and aiming.

One of the bullets ricocheted off a guard's helmet, and the man yelled, grabbing at his head. Reaver shot him, landing a hit against the man's shoulder. He fell over the side of the bridge, into deep waters. Ben, seeing a barrel of explosives, aimed and shot, the barrel exploding, causing one of the unlucky bastards beside it to go over the bridge as well.

Naveena strapped her rifle back onto her back, and took out her sword. Walter followed suit, and the two moved quickly over the bridge, dodging bullets and killing the last two guards on it. When they were dead, Naveena looked back and waved, gesturing that it was safe. Her lips were parted, and she panted, out-of-breath, as did Walter and Ben. Reaver, it seemed, was unaffected by the very notion of exertion, and he walked, ramrod straight up to the gate.

"Tsk, tsk, Logan," He murmured, pursing his lips, fingertips brushing against the panels of the gate. "Hiding behind closed doors? What _would _Sparrow say?"

Ben, hands on his knees, glanced up at the gate, "I don't think Kalin's going to be able to blow this one up."

He stood to full height, wiping the sweat off his brow, blond strands of hair plastered wetly to his forehead. Ben remarked, sarcastically, with rolled eyes, "I thought people were supposed to open doors _for _Queens. Not the other way around."

"We need to look for a way around." Naveena stated, though it was obvious that that was what they needed to do. "Reaver," She looked at the man who seemed fascinated with the paneling on the door. "You seem like you'd know some dubious way into the castle."

Reaver clicked his tongue, fixing her with an amused glance, "_Must _you be _so _assumptive, _ma belle. _Any dubious entryways into this little castle are _my _secrets to know."

"So you don't know any." Naveena narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms. Reaver's tongue clicked again, in annoyance, and he stepped away from the gate. Ben's eyes roved over a piece of roof that had, conveniently enough, caved in on itself to make a ramp. Naveena noticed it as well, because she murmured some sort of unintelligible command and guided the foursome up the ramp.

The ramp overlooked one of the streets in Bowerstone, and Naveena saw Page, fighting with the Elite Guard. She fought fervently, with a passion Naveena had expected of her. Naveena ran down, finding herself in a street adjacent from the one Page was fighting in. She jumped into the fray, helping the man known as Kidd fend off one of the guards. Kidd shouted his thanks as she ran past him, the others following close behind.

"Come on Page," Ben grumbled, biting his lip. "Where are you?"

They stopped abruptly when they came to a blockade in the middle of the street, obviously built by the guards to prevent the rebels from getting to the Castle. Naveena searched for a way around the blockade, and noticed a house with a way through. A large section of the house had been destroyed, letting them into the street Page was in.

She stood, sword at the ready and covered in enough blood to fill a tub, and as soon as Naveena and the others approached her, "My men are taking care of the east barracks. I couldn't leave you out here alone."

"Alright, then you're with us, now." Ben said, a small grin on his face. Page glared at him, and the word frosty never seemed more appropriate.

"We need to get to the castle." Page looked at Naveena, nodding. The future Queen nodded back, and followed Page up the street, where they found yet another gaggle of guards.

Naveena began to wonder if the guards were infinite in their numbers.

Reaver quickly shot two of the guards, reloading his pistol before aiming again. Page, quickly, her feet nearly gliding over the steps, jumped up and twisted her sword around, jamming the pommel of her sword into the base of a guard's throat. The guard gagged, and Page took advantage of this moment of weakness by ramming the tip of her sword into his midsection. It was ghastly, almost, how her sword glinted with the flames of Bowerstone. Naveena dodged a swift swipe from one of the guards' swords, the air howling in her ears as she killed the man.

The revolutionary looked up, seeing tattered flags and yet another closed gate. Again, they had reached an obstacle.

"Elite soldiers my ass! Have that!" Ben yipped, smirking at one of the cadavers as he stepped over them. The five of the rebels looked up at the gate with growing anxiety.

"_Wonderful. _How many damn gates are in this city?" Naveena complained, eyes narrowed.

Page turned to face them, her face as placid as always, as if this didn't put a wrench in her plans at all, "What we need is explosives. But I used mine up on the way here."

"If only we knew some sort of tiny, crazy old man who enjoyed blowing things up…"

And then the gate did just that. Blow up.

The five jumped in surprise as bits of the former gate rolled all over the place. And from the rubble emerged, once again and out of the blue, Sabine and Boulder.

"Ha ha!" The tiny, crazy old man exclaimed. "Did you see that, Boulder? Let the whole city bow to our thunder!"

Ben seemed confused, "Hang on," Very, very confused. "How did you get on the other side in the first place?"

Sabine rubbed his mustache, and those eyes of his glowed as he cackled, "Dwellers have their ways, m'boy. Is there anyone left to kill?"

"There will be soon," Said Page. "More troops are on the way. Kalin's fleet has got a fair few, but not all."

Ben brandished his rifle, reloading it, and looking back at Naveena. "We'll hold them off. Good luck in there, hope the crown fits!"

He, Sabine, Boulder and Page ran off, leaving Reaver, Naveena and Walter in front of the Castle. Naveena looked at Reaver, and he looked at her.

"You're not going to fight?" She asked, cocking a red eyebrow.

"My mansion," He explained, looking at her with an expression the told her she should have know this already. "Is a complete disaster, complete with bullet holes and everything, thanks to your miscreant of a brother. I still have to hire staff, you know, and it is a droll errand, finding staff that are worth the gold pieces."

Walter muttered something about selfishness and Naveena turned around, looking upon the Castle. Her home. Reaver stood ramrod straight beside her, and Walter seemed to shake with something she'd never seen before in him.

Into the Castle she went, her heart hammering with the thought of facing Logan, finally after so many months.

* * *

**NNGH. Logan!**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	14. Catharsis

Avarice

Chapter 14: Catharsis

_Soon she's down the stairs,_

_Her morning elegance she wears,_

_The sound of water makes her dream,_

_Awoken by a cloud of steam._

"_Her Morning Elegance" – Oren Lavie_

* * *

Bowerstone Castle was eerily, and uncharacteristically quiet. It was a creeping silence, a mist that hovered in the air like some sort of impenetrable fog, and there was no one, not a single guard, maid or advisor in sight.

Naveena marched through the hallways of her old home, recent memories nipping wildly at her ankles, tugging through her heart and bringing thoughts of the dead protestors to the forefront of her mind. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and Logan's words, cold and clinical as they were, echoed in her ears as though she were walking through a tunnel.

The violet curtains had been pulled in front of all the windows, shrouding the castle in a deep, blackout darkness that covered everything in sight.

To one, it gave off the impression that someone was avoiding looking outside, as the destruction and revolt caused by the dissenters. It was as though Logan did not wish to see what he had brought to fruition through his actions and despotism.

Such a thought enraged Naveena, made her fists curl and her teeth gnash her lip. Walter, who seemed to notice her anger and tensed shoulders, made it a point to look her sternly in the eyes askance, as if to give her silent warning.

Reaver was humming to himself lightly, fingers dancing across the barrel of the Dragonstomper .48, as though he cared little for the change Logan's dethroning would bring, or the uprising it would inevitably cause, and only for his own petty, personal vengeance.

Naveena could pick out the tune, and it made the air around them filled with a tension even she could not describe.

The humming was light-hearted and jovial, something unsuited to their moods as they sauntered through the halls of Bowerstone Castle, something completely inappropriate but needed, Naveena thought, and damn was it needed.

Walter looked as though he wished to strangle Reaver with his bare, large hands. Such a thought was a thought that Naveena agreed with, but his humming calmed her, almost. Gave her a certain peace despite the turmoil that coiled in her stomach like several slithering snakes.

After what seemed like a long-stretched millennia, Naveena, Reaver and Walter all found themselves outside the doors of the War Room. Naveena's fingers brushed briefly against the silver handles of the door, and a memory, one she was highly willing to forget forever, was brutally dragged to the forefront of her mind. Something like a pyre rose in the pit of her stomach, a newfound hatred for Logan, raised by everything she had seen and done and heard.

Her eyes went from Reaver, lingered, and then to Walter.

And then, without a single word or movement or gasp, Naveena kicked in the door. Its hinges cracked, and the door fell to the floor with a loud, resounding thud. Naveena's fingers went immediately to the rifle strapped to her back and she brandished it with relish. Reaver pointed his pistol, finger trained noticeably on the trigger, curled lightly. And Walter, Walter pulled out no weapon.

There was the scraped of metal, and Naveena could pick out, just ahead of the Map Table, a lithe, thin man who was too young to look so old, and too thin to be a King. Logan and Naveena had never quite resembled one another. He had taken after their father, a common man from Oakfield, with his dark, thick hair and angled features. Whereas Naveena resembled Sparrow in all manners of appearance and ability.

One would have called them the two faces of a single gold piece.

Logan's hand gripped the hilt of his rapier tightly, and his lips thinned into a single line, "_So," _He started, eyes narrowing. He looked over the three of them, and his gaze settled, lingered on Reaver. There was something similar to betrayal that flashed there, and Reaver smirked at it. "This is how it ends. The old fool, the _traitor, _and the child who ran away."

Logan, and this action surprised Naveena to the point where she lowered her rifle, sheathed his rapier. The scraping of metal echoed in the air, and Reaver was left the only one brandishing a weapon.

Naveena fixed the deviant with a glare, and Reaver, hesitating slightly, lowered his pistol. It was astonishing, really, the fact that he'd _listened _to her, but Naveena simply trained her glare back on her brother.

This _tyrant _was her brother.

Logan looked at her, and only at her. For the moment, it seemed as though there was no one else in the War Room except the tyrant and the revolutionary. Logan's fingers were running across the edge of the Map Table, the edge of his Albion.

"You've finally become the woman I always wanted you to be." Logan's eyes were half-lidded, and his tone dripped with something she hadn't expected out of him: _remorse._

Naveena opened her mouth, words, accusations, memories bubbling to her lips but Walter interjected, stepping forward, his voice steeled with something accusatory, "She's a lot more than that, Logan. And she's ready to take your place."

Logan looked up at Walter for the first time, and then down, away from the group. His fingers rested on the edge of the Map Table, and his gaze roved over the many mountains, seas and forests of the nation. When he spoke, he sound resigned, as though he'd been waiting for this day for a long, terribly long, time, "Perhaps it is time for someone else to lead Albion."

Naveena was going to say, _"That's it?" _but everything she had seen tore through her like a Balverine, the memories of their time in the gardens of the Castle brought forth a boiling pot of emotions, and she walked up, pointing at him, those emotions finally given permission to spill over,

"You were never a leader! Just another tyrant!"

"And a committer of unlawful _vandalism, ma belle, _lest you forget my blasted mansion!" Reaver interrupted, and his aloof attitude about Logan's sudden capitulation didn't come as a surprise to Naveena anymore.

Logan, who ignored Reaver, as did Walter and Naveena, was looking back into his sister's eyes. Her breath caught in her throat, tied itself into a dreaded, droll little knot and sat there. Something welled in her eyes. Something all-too-similar to tears.

This was her brother.

"Did it ever occur to you," He was watching her, and only her. Again, there was no one else. "That I may have had good reason to be?"

The words seemed to have pushed Walter, and he grabbed Logan roughly by the arm, snarling, "We're not interested in your _reasons!"_

Walter and Logan were face to face. Whatever sympathy the old mentor may have come in with dissipated, and his beard bristled when Logan replied, somberly, "Cower behind ignorance if you will. But my sister deserves to know the truth."

Logan gave her a quick look askance, and then glanced up at Reaver. There was betrayal in those eyes, and paranoia in spades. Reaver was smirking, and the shrug he shot the now former King of Albion was entirely uncalled for.

The old mentor twisted Logan's arm, dragging the ex-king behind him out of the War Room, with a growled, "Save it for the trial, Logan. You can beg for your life then."

Naveena looked over her shoulder at the two figures, and back down at the Map Table. Reaver glanced at her, and with a sort of cold indifference, followed by frigid composure, he wandered out of the War Room after the two.

When their footsteps faded down the hall, Naveena leaned against the edge of the Map Table and let everything that had just occurred wash over her.

She had won.

Logan had capitulated.

Naveena was the Queen of Albion now.

The welled feelings in her eyes spilled over, much like the boiling pot of her emotions, and she wept against the Map Table, when it occurred to her, finally, that her brother would no doubt die.

Logan was going to die.

* * *

The morning came without warning.

Those that were the key players of the revolution spent the night in Bowerstone Castle's walls, after feasting and relishing their victory. Sabine had gotten drunk on Albion's finest spirits, and had to be taken back to his room by Boulder, much to Naveena and the others' amusement. They ate their glories, felt the whitewash of hope upon them, and toasted, with clinking gilded glasses, to a reign that would no doubt be prosperous.

Reaver did not join in the festivities.

Something which surprised, and worried Naveena. Usually, he would not be one to pass on parties. Where he had gone to, and what he was doing, was a complete mystery. She did not care, however. Her mind was preoccupied with the celebrations, and the feeling of dread that came with the rise of the morning sun.

Logan. His trial. It was the first thing she was meant to do, as Queen.

Naveena stood in front of the closed doors, Walter and Jasper looking at her with calm, careful smiles. If they thought of Logan's predicament, or the fact that Naveena was to kill her own brother, they said nothing. But the worried glances she could feel Walter boring into the back of her head as the doors were slowly opened, did speak volumes.

The sun shone lightly on her face, and Naveena was greeted with a loud cacophony of voices, cheers, screams of jubilation. Naveena walked forward, her nerves tensed, her face etched in worry as she stepped towards the balcony, towards her people. Confetti was being thrown into the air, and she was distantly aware of Sabine's bow and Ben's nod of approval.

Walter and Jasper had followed behind her, Walter carrying the crown of Albion as she stepped forward. Naveena took in a quick, loud gasp as she looked upon the large, very large crowd. Their faces were beaming, their eyes glowing, and Naveena smiled upon seeing a very familiar boy at the front of the crowd.

Elliot waved his arms in the air, shooting her a grin, but he looked just as worried as she.

And then, Naveena felt the crown being placed upon her head.

It was as though someone had taken all the weight of the world, and taken the time to put it into the crown. Naveena tensed even more, but forced a smile as she looked upon the eager crowd.

When she waved, the crowds chanted,

"_Hero! Hero! Hero!"_

Walter clapped her back.

"_Hero! Hero! Hero!"_

Elliot gave up on waving his arms, warm brown eyes locked with her blue.

"_Hero! Hero! Hero!"_

From the shadows within Bowerstone Castle, seated on the bottom stairs, Reaver tapped his newly bought cane against the carpet, a dubious grin spread across his handsome face.

"_Hero! Hero! Hero!"_

Naveena looked behind her, feeling that set of deep brown eyes against the back of her head, but there was no one there.

"_Hero!"_

Tears ran freely down the contours of her cheeks, smearing the makeup she had been forced to throw on haphazardly.

* * *

The Queen of Albion declared a holiday. The people were free to celebrate, to spend the day off and revel in the fact that their King was gone, and there was a Golden Age ahead. People poured through the streets, screaming their happiness and stumbling drunk outside the castle, hopeful drunks with plans to catch a glimpse of their fair, red-headed hero.

Naveena's plans did not include a decision to wander about the streets, greeting her subjects to and fro. Inside the War Room sat a woman, not Queen, nor Hero, but a small girl who resembled a glimmer of a princess. There was no strong woman that sat in one of the luxurious loveseats, eyes set on the Map Table, there was only a small girl, with a burden upon her head. A burden she never wanted, a burden she hadn't thought she would have, many months ago.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, those days she spent traversing the castle walls with Elliot, snatching stolen moments whenever they could, avoiding her brother because he was always in a foul temperament. Naveena wondered if it had all happened to a different person, a different girl. Perhaps her memories were not hers, perhaps the tyrant chained in the Castle dungeons was not her brother, but simply a despot that she had no emotional strings to.

Perhaps she had never faced down Reaver, perhaps she had never led a rebellion, or succeeded in liberating the nation of Albion from the iron grip of its King. Yes, perhaps all the events that led up to this moment had happened to a different girl all together.

Naveena let out a frustrated sigh, buried her head in her hands, and tried to convince herself that there was an obvious way forward. She was supposed to bring justice to the people, supposed to depose of tyrants and bring closure to all the people affected by his cruelty.

She was supposed to bring justice to those protestors she had let die in exchange for Elliot. He had blamed himself, for her selfishness. He had told her that, once.

They had reunited, and she hugged him awkwardly and found that whatever passion she had held for him had seemingly disappeared with the newest passions. But there was still something there, a semblance of something she needed, something she would never find in the company or arms of a man like Reaver. It was kindness. Caring. Understanding.

But the spark. Everything, from the looks to the love to the understanding was _there, _if in a miniscule way, but there wasn't passion. Lust.

But her own pride demanded that she not be a simple conquest, like so many others. She wanted to be a _milestone._

Naveena groaned in her hands, and reached for the glass of untouched wine beside her. She was being avaricious. Greedy. When the bitter wine touched her lips and embraced her tongue and inhibitions with glee, she reminded herself with a certain lecturing tone that she was now being gluttonous.

The one thing she needed right now, was excess.

To sort her thoughts. She wanted to put off Logan's trial, to pretend that her brother did not commit the crimes he had. But she knew, she had seen the poverty and destruction his avarice had caused, and he needed to pay for it.

The liquor burned a slight path down her throat. It swallowed her pathos, made her ever so woozy. Her inhibitions became curved, and it was indeed what she needed.

"_Ma belle," _Came a familiar, high voice. Naveena's head shot upwards, at the opened doors, just in time to see Reaver close them behind him. "Having a private party? And you didn't even invite me, tsk tsk."

"I didn't invite you, because it was a private bloody party, as you said." She frowned, her features contorted by lines around her mouth, as he sat down beside her. Gracefully, Reaver hooked an arm around her neck and leaned beside her.

For some reason or another, Naveena had the sudden desire to gouge out his eyes with a spoon when they dared look too low. Curse whoever had made the bloody corset. It didn't help that she couldn't bloody breathe.

"Ah," Reaver was entirely too close for her comfort, though their last true conversation alone together had been much more uncomfortable. "But what party would possibly be a party without me?"

"It would be a lovely party." Naveena quipped, attempting to remove the arm hooked around her shoulders. Reaver suddenly plucked the glass from her fingers and drank from it, downing the rest of her rather expensive wine.

"And why, my _Queen, _have you decided to lock yourself in here? Planning to follow in our dear ex-King's footsteps, I suppose? You do have the frown down flat, if I might say." He grinned, ignoring Naveena's attempts to remove his arm from her shoulders. With a mischievous chuckle, he nuzzled her neck, brushing tantalizing lips against the base of her throat.

Naveena tried very, very hard to ignore the warmth in the middle of her stomach, and snatched the empty glass from Reaver's fingers, placing it back on the nightstand beside her. She pushed him away, stood and approached the Map Table.

"Logan." Was her reply. It was as cold and cutting as a reply could be, and Naveena attempted to run her fingers along the edges of a mountain.

Reaver stretched himself, like a cat, across the entire loveseat, removing his large top hat and throwing it carelessly behind him. He watched her with narrowed, albeit amused twinkling eyes, his head propped up by a closed fist.

"The answer is quite simple. Kill him, maybe desecrate his corpse, and then throw him into an incinerator. Problem solved, stylishly."

Naveena's reply was a very icy one, "Don't." She sighed, fingers digging into the lip of the Map Table. "I… I don't want to kill him."

In her head, bugles of alarm went off, _"BAD IDEA! DON'T ASK HIM FOR ADVICE. BAD, BAD IDEA!"_

Reaver cocked an eyebrow, and in his mind he contrived several promising scenarios, each of which involved him getting something from her.

"And all that antipathy from before? My, how mercurial you are, Your Majesty." He was smiling, stretched about her loveseat in an almost lascivious way. "Mercurial, indeed."

"He's my brother." She said this as if he did not know the thing. Bugles of alarm continued on, a howling wind that sang in her ears. "He's a tyrant, too."

Reaver sat upright, pouring himself a glass of wine, helping himself to one of the expensive bottles she had locked herself up with. He snatched up the glass with greedy fingers, swirled the liquid within and drank from it sweetly.

"Most of Albion would like his head on a pike, though such a thing would be a very tawdry decoration in this place. I suggest hanging. Not as messy, just as fun." Reaver wasn't quite sure what he liked more, the idea of Logan ending up dead or the idea of screwing with Naveena's head by persuading her, and he was good at that, into killing her brother.

Ah, Sparrow was no doubt looking upon him with fire and brimstone in her eyes.

His words set off a spark, because Naveena, in a flurry of her elegant clothes whipped round to face him, one hand braced against the edge of the Map Table. For a solemn moment, they stood frozen in time, Reaver with a glass of too-expensive wine at his lips and her with vengeance buried in those blue orbs of hers.

And then; "He's my _brother. _He wasn't… he wasn't always a tyrant. I… I remember playing _dolls _with him. I remember playing _chess _against him and always losing. I remember the days he would laugh with the rest of us, and then he went to that damned desert and…"

She looked away, memories of her blindness and the time spent in darkness bursting forth from a repressive dam she had built. Naveena, as was her habit and customary mannerism, bit her lips.

"_My_," Reaver's tone was playful, wry and once more inappropriate. "I can almost hear your crush screaming in agony. Lovely, delightful agony!"

"Shut up." Naveena hissed, through gritted and tightly clenched teeth. She looked down, away from him, red bangs dangling in front of her eyes. "I… you're not the best person to ask, but what do you think I should do? What would _you _do if someone you cared about was being put on trial and you had their life in your hands?"

The question hit a place that was very uncomfortable for Reaver, and for a second, his expression changed completely. The hardness of the centuries past faded for a moment, and there was slight terror in his eyes, but it was there for only a second.

It was a second Naveena had seen.

Naveena was almost confused, and she backed away a little, the lip of the Map Table digging into the curve of her buttocks. Reaver downed his second glass of wine, looked away while placing the glass back on the nightstand, and didn't face her, noticeably when he answered.

"I don't know." The words were quiet, uncertain. The fact that they had tumbled from Reaver's lips was enough to send Naveena into a state of shock. However, she looked away, at the closed doors of the War Room, and sighed.

"I see."

* * *

Naveena slept uneasily beside her husband, the conversation with Reaver whittling her thoughts, lulling her into an uneasy, uncertain and certainly frightened sleep. Her dreams were furtive, filled with little more than shadows and whispers, but they were enough to awaken her in the night and force her further into Elliot's arms.

He whispered sweet nothings into her ears, and lulled her to sleep again.

In the morning, she was taken back to the War Room, and greeted by Walter and a rather unseemly, fat little stub of man who went by the name of Hobson. He very much resembled a Hobbe, almost so that it was frightening. Hobson was to be her assistant, Walter had said, and organize her royal schedule. Hobson gave off the profound impression that he was interested in nothing except wealth.

As expected, the trial and conviction of Logan was to be her first order of business.

Naveena stood in front of the doors of the Throne Room, and with a sigh and tenser shoulders, the doors were opened by two footmen.

There was a crowd, that cheered her on. The key players of the revolution surrounded the throne.

And there was her brother, unwashed and tired and standing with perfect posture, befitting a member of the royal family.

"All stand to attention, for the Queen of Albion."

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	15. Logan's Trial

Avarice

Chapter 15: Logan's Trial

_It all runs away like a memory,_

_Once there was a picture of a happy place,_

_But I always keep thinking,_

_What a great place to leave!_

"_Brother" – Dark New Day_

* * *

The Queen of Albion sat proudly upon her throne.

And yet, even though she had waited for this moment, ached and waited and yearned, she could do nothing except stare at the hands folded elegantly in her lap. It appeared that not much had changed in the transition between princess to rebel leader to Queen.

Naveena, the Hero of Albion, a figurehead to show that the people of Albion could take back what they wanted and needed, was still human. She was not a god, nor a divine being come back from distant quiescent land.

She was human, and she still could not look into the eyes of her brother, Logan, and declare him a tyrant. Inside, her stomach twisted darkly with each passing emotion. The sounds of the oppressed, the persecuted and afraid ran loudly in her ears.

There were jeers at Logan, screams for justice. At her side, standing on the raised platform upon which the throne stood, were her friends and allies, including Reaver, looking upon Logan as though he were the dirt underneath the soles of their shoes.

It took all she had to look up from her hands and into the eyes of a tyrant. His face was bruised and bloodied, someone had taken the time to scourge him before the trial, and yet he stood proudly, poised with a perfect posture. His chin was lifted upward, and there was a glint in the dark, tortured eyes of his. Logan's legs and back were ramrod straight, and his chained hands were held proudly before him.

When their eyes met, Naveena's heart bled. It was as though someone had taken a knife and stabbed her roughly between the ribs, attacking the perfect spot.

Walter gathered his composure, and the mentor strode gruffly to stand before Logan. The eyes of the Queen were cast downward once more, and her fingers tightened in her lap.

"Logan," Walter, whose voice broke for only a second upon saying the name, began. "Former King of Albion, you stand accused today of crimes against the kingdom and its people."

Walter turned, gesturing towards the leaders, "Those who brought you to justice will now speak."

Sabine, that mad old Dweller, did not waste a second to step forward, his clothes jingling as he moved. When he spoke, it was with a barely-contained anger, and his face was red as a beet, "There's not a soul alive in the kingdom who hasn't suffered for his _glory. _And plenty who've died for it. I says, let him have some death of his own."

The Dweller turned to look at Naveena, and she raised her head to look at him. The sigh that escaped her lips was resigned indeed. It was Ben, now, who stood up. He looked immediately at Naveena, eyebrows stitched together. Although his eyes glinted with something profound, the care for a friend, when he began his rant, it was with a venom almost unexpected of him,

"Look," He glared at Logan, nose wrinkling. "I'm not one for lopping people's heads off, but I saw Major Swift executed, as though it were a bloody circus act! He deserves nothing less, as far as I'm concerned."

Page, the closest friend that Naveena had in the entire rebellion, now stepped forward. Her eyes were filled with something different, empathy, the Queen supposed. She looked at Logan, and then swerved her focus back to Naveena, saying, "But aren't we better than that?"

The dark complexioned woman's eyes seemed to pierce Reaver when she continued, and the deviant reflected the look with a self-satisfied but reproachful smirk, "Isn't that why we fought to be here now? I've seen what Logan has done to this city; People starving to death, children forced to work… but killing him now won't solve anything."

Naveena looked at Page, and Page looked at Naveena. The Queen gave her a thankful, very thankful look, but her stomach coiled sharply, and the urge to throw up into the nearest wastebasket was becoming more and more appealing.

Kalin, however, glowered at Page with thinly-veiled disdain, and her fists clenched at her sides. This painted Auroran was the one to receive the largest brunt of Logan's cruelty, she had seen her people die because of him, had seen things worse than what Naveena and Reaver had faced in Shadelight.

The painted Auroran turned her attention to Logan, and it was here, that Logan seemed most affected by the whips of his character. He flinched, and proud though the man, boy, was, he could not hide whatever he felt from that glower.

Lines appeared on the edges of Kalin's lips, "It is not my place to discuss his fate. But his betrayal condemned many of my people to death. He promised us salvation, and then left us to face the darkness alone."

Reaver said nothing, even when Naveena glanced up at him. The fop's eyes were fixated on the chandelier high in the throne room, and whatever he was thinking, Naveena was not privy to.

Her attention was brought back by Logan's sharp reply, "I had good reason to break that promise." He and Naveena's eyes locked once more, and the two seemed engaged in a showdown of glowers. "And I had good reason for the crimes you claim I committed."

There was no claim about it.

His icy composure, the proud poise he had built seemed to chip away when he spoke again. His voice, so strong, wavered for the first time since the beginning of the trial, "When I returned to Albion, I received a visit from a Blind Seer. Theresa, our mother's guide."

Reaver seemed stirred by the name, and his eyes snapped from the intricate glass designs of the chandelier to Logan. The deviant's fingers went immediately to the holster strapped to his thigh. Naveena also leaned forward, and her heart sunk horribly in her chest. The rest of the people, from the silenced crowd to the ringleaders of the revolution, knew nothing of this Theresa.

Only three people knew of the implications that came with the Seer known as Theresa.

"She showed me the future of this kingdom: The Darkness in Aurora is coming here, bringing death, destruction," His head bowed slightly, and his eyes flitted across the floor of the room, as though he were experiencing a particular memory for a second time. His tongue flicked over his lips, and he gave out a shaky, almost frightened sigh, "The end, of our way of life. If a few had to suffer, it was to build an army. If a few had to die, it was to save a country!"

His neck snapped upwards, his eyes implored, searching Naveena's for some measure of reassurance. But Naveena continued to stare at her hands. She remembered the face of the Crawler, of six black, beady eyes and the pain that came with them. She could almost feel the feeling of being blind once more, of seeing nothing but Darkness.

"I have spent years preparing for this attack!" Logan's voice rose, but he sounded hoarse. His voice was that of a true King's, it commanded, demanded truly, the attention of everyone around him. His was the composure of a leader, of a well-bred King. Sparrow had demanded he be raised as a King, groomed into the profession and the grooming showed. "Let me stand by your side now, and all my soldiers will be yours to command!"

He was attempting to make a case for himself, the pleas of a desperate man who believed wholeheartedly that he was about to die. Naveena looked at him again, and stiffened when she saw the desperation buried deep within his eyes.

"Let us face this coming darkness together, sister." And then his eyes closed. All thought of composure seemed lost, and his shoulders seemed to shake.

The silence was broken by Naveena's almost shattered voice, "If the Darkness is coming… then Albion is in grave, grave danger."

The crowd of spectators broke into a gaggle of nervous tittering and whispering. Naveena's ringleaders looked amongst themselves with worried eyes and Kalin took to staring coldly at the ground. Walter shouted, loudly,

"Enough! The Queen will make her decision now."

When Walter turned to look at Naveena, there seemed to be a silent plea within those eyes. Reaver took to staring at the chandelier once again. The crowd was silenced.

Logan's eyes opened once more, slowly, and his voice was but a mere whisper,

"You have the power over life and death, sister. Now choose."

Naveena, Queen of Albion, closed her eyes and crossed her legs. She was thinking, taking a great time to turn all her thoughts over like a dagger. Inside, her heart bled, and her stomach was coiling itself into the tightest knots possible. The one thing the former princess had wanted, above all, was to see her brother pay. She had vowed to never forgive him, to avenge the deaths of those people he, and by extension she herself, had killed. Naveena had swore on her mother's grave that she would not let Logan get away with this.

It was harder to make a choice now, when the realization that he was both tyrant and brother was stalwart.

Logan stared at her, all piercing eyes and bloodied, swelled lip. His thoughts were indecipherable, as the rest of him was, and Naveena opened her eyes simply to look at him.

This was her brother.

This was a tyrant.

This was the boy who had indirectly raised her when their mother died.

Finally, the Queen of Albion stood, feet planted firmly on the ground, everyone within the room looking at her in expectation. The ringleaders waited with bated breath, and Naveena's words rang out through the throne room like a bell tower,

"Logan," Her voice cracked upon the name. Flashes of memories, old and new, ran through her mind like a man dancing gaily through a field. He was teaching, or attempting to, her how to hold a sword. He was yelling at her after she broke a vase. They were reminiscing about mother. "This is not the time for revenge."

The words were brisk, high, and Logan's eyes grew wide. With surprise, with thanks, with something Naveena could not see. She searched, but she wasn't sure what was there.

"We need your help, Logan." The confession was final, but Naveena had lied.

_I need your help, Logan._

There was a collective groan, yells of outcry, hideous jeers thrown at Logan, though they rolled off of him as though they were nothing. Kalin stormed off, not wishing to remain in the same room as Logan or Naveena. Page's hand brushed Naveena's shoulder, and when the Queen glanced up at the rebel, the woman nodded.

Walter's eyes glimmered, but his voice remained devoid of the very emotion he was afraid to show, "The Queen has made her decision. Logan's life will be spared."

Slowly, achingly slowly, the outcries of her subjects ringing in her ears and the angered faces of all her friends sans Page who looked at Naveena only timidly, the Queen walked towards her brother almost apprehensively. In a way, she was a little girl again and he the towering, moody teenager seated with a crown he wasn't prepared for.

When she stood in front of him, she stopped, and brother and sister looked at one another with reversed roles. There was more than relief in Logan's eyes. There was fear, paranoia, an array of emotions that circumvented all her emotions. Naveena wanted to cry, and her throat scratched with the desire to let out everything.

Her brother's words were wavering, slow in their approach and complete devoid of hope, "I know you will never forgive me for the things I've done. You've told me so once, remember?"

Naveena bit her lip, looked away from those piercing eyes, "Of course I do."

Some of the audience threw up their hands and grumbled, leaving. Their taunts and contemptuous shouts were ignored by the two. There was that feeling once more, that there was no one but the two of them in the purple laced throne room. It was just Logan and Naveena.

There was a timid touch on Naveena's arm, and Naveena glanced at the thin fingers, the one thing of their mother's that Logan had inherited, and her gaze traveled up the arm to peer into Logan's face. His self-confidence gathered itself up again, there was something steely in his dark eyes, and his words were ramrod hard,

"What matters now is that we defend our land. The castle is yours… as is the throne. I am glad to be rid of them."

Naveena closed her eyes, to open her mouth, to let the questions that had been bubbling inside of her spill from her lips, and when she opened her eyes she was met with the standstill picture of Logan's hand on her arm and the swirling nova of grayscale behind Logan.

Theresa.

"Come to Road to Rule. We have much to discuss."

"_That we do, Theresa." _Naveena, with regret, pulled herself away from Logan's touch and into the nova behind him. Everyone was frozen in time except for her. _"That we do."_

And she stepped into the nova.

* * *

**Short chapter this time! And no Reaver/Naveena love! (However, in the next chapter I can happily promise something _quite _special~!)**

**Spring Break is coming up, and I'm heading to Florida next week till the end of Spring Break, so I can't say the next chapter will be here very soon. (It will come eventually!)**

**Feedback is appreciated~!  
**


	16. Emperor and Empress

Avarice

Chapter 16: Emperor and Empress

_The air is so hot,_

_And my breath comes fast,_

_I thumb the cool blade,_

_But I know this can't last._

"_Shadow Stabbing" – CAKE_

* * *

Golden light flickered all around Naveena, and she found herself standing upon a dais which bore the symbol of the Heroes, the icon which adorned the Crown, and one that had been used to stir the Rebellion. The redhead found herself standing in front of a copy of Fairfax Castle, surrounded by people she had helped and people that had joined her in the rebellion. A version of Reaver, frozen in time and wearing different garments of gold and red, had joined the group, his cocky expression always there.

The gates that led to the Castle were closed shut, and Theresa stood in front of them, head bowed, hands folded eternally in front of her.

Naveena eyed her angrily, the thought, the notion that this Seer of the Spire had lied to her the entire time turning over constantly in her mind, like a poisoned dagger. The Queen clenched her fists, nails digging into skin.

"You have fulfilled the first part of your destiny." It was as though this was all the ambiguous seer cared for. Perhaps to Theresa, it did not matter who or what she cut down in her path, as long as she got what she wanted. That sort of selfishness disgusted Naveena, and it took all she had not to smack the seer. "You were little more than a child when you left the castle. You have become a Hero, a leader. And now, finally, a monarch."

But at what cost? If Naveena had been someone other than herself, would she have spared Logan? What kind of conversation would they have been having then, if it were the case?

"But your journey is not yet done." Said Theresa, and she said it with all a bit of indifference. Cold, precise. Every word seemed weighted somehow. "Now you are Queen. You can know the truth. Albion will be attacked."

The words brought finality upon Naveena's shoulders, and finally, as if everything in the world had been brought into it, she could feel the weight of the crown upon her head. Theresa's head lifted upwards, and those beetle-black eyes, shiny and glittering within the shadows of a crimson hood, met Naveena's blue. Theresa had lied to her. There was no doubt about it.

For what reason? This was a thought that struck Naveena, and for some reason, she was not sure that she would ever know the answer. At the moment, for the time being, Theresa's motivations mattered little to Naveena. All that mattered was saving Albion from the Darkness.

And of the Darkness… the Crawler's words whispered violently in her ears, and the hard gaze settled on Theresa wore thin for a moment, wavering. She shivered, nails biting harshly into her skin again. If Reaver hadn't been there, to save her… would she be here now?

The Hero realized, unfortunately, scowling with displeasure, that she owed Reaver a great deal. And Reaver himself had leverage over her. Naveena wasn't comfortable with that.

Theresa spoke again, words whispered but holding a sort of sharpness to them, like a keening blade, "And the threat could not be greater. Darkness is coming to our land. It cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be halted. The Ruler of Albion is all that stands between the world we inhabit, and the Darkness. That is why you had to take your brother's place. The course of history demands it. If you do not succeed, everything we know will come to an end."

Finally, Naveena could not keep her sweltering silence, anger buzzed inside her, like a wasp's nest, "Why didn't you tell me all this at the start?" She demanded, her ruling tone coming easily to her, more easily than she would have thought. "It was _never _about Logan, was it?"

"I told you what you needed to know, and I never spoke anything but the truth." So matter-of-fact, it sounded. So clear-cut and precise.

Theresa herself didn't seem to believe in her own answer, and continued, words quick, spoken in a raised tone that was only a notch above a whisper, "With Logan on the throne, Albion would've been doomed. This much I know. Only with a Hero on the throne do we stand a chance of surviving."

"And how do I stop it?" Naveena looked at the ground, eyes narrowed like the slits between a closed window shutter.

Theresa sighed, raising her head further, revealing her entire face. Narrow and pale. She responded, "You won't. Its arrival is imminent. One year from now, the Darkness will fall upon Albion. All you can do is prepare, and hope to save as many of your people as you can."

Naveena looked up again, unwilling to, but she had to, as if drawn by some unseen force.

The Seer of the Spire continued, "How you do so is entirely up to you." She raised a hand, holding up two fingers. "Two paths lie ahead."

Suddenly, a figure, one of her and bearing the same transparent figure as the allies around her, revealed itself in a burst of blue light. The figure, the Not-Naveena, held its hands out in a faux pas hug, and feathered wings were attached to the back, like a mockery of angels. Beautiful, and impossible.

"You may keep the promises you have made and be known as a benevolent ruler. But know that doing so, will leave little to spend on the kingdom's protection, and may lead you to disaster. It is not easy to be popular and keep the treasury full. Unless you are willing to sacrifice your own personal wealth."

Naveena frowned, staring at the angelic figure. Was it worth keep her promises if it meant that more people would die? Or could she sacrifice her personal wealth? And if so, how in the Void would she get that much money? This, too, seemed beautiful and impossible.

A second figure, on the opposite end of Theresa as the angelic one, appeared in a gust of red and black. This one, bore the makings of a demon, with beetle-black eyes and leathery wings. As the figure took on the appearance of Naveena, it made the girl shiver in disgust.

"Or you may choose to break those promises. To harm your people in order to save them. You will not lack the means to build the army you need, but you will be hated. This path will cast you in the role of a tyrant, as it did your brother."

Both figures disappeared, as though they were made of nothing but dust and carried off by the wind.

"You have one year to do what Logan could not. Be the ruler that readies Albion for the greatest threat it has ever faced. And be the Hero that can stand against it."

"And if I can't?" Naveena drew in her bottom lip between her teeth. "What then?"

Theresa seemed angry, and again the seer lowered her head, shifting from foot-to-foot, "You must be that ruler. All distractions must be ignored, if the Darkness is to be destroyed. I warned you, once, about consorting with Reaver, and you ended up within Shadelight. That warning you did not heed. I will warn you again, Hero, do not change the course of history."

"Don't patroni—" Naveena started, but Theresa had disappeared. The gates leading to the ghostly castle opened, and Naveena stared up at her Castle.

Who was Theresa to order around a Hero Queen?

* * *

The rest of the day passed by slowly. Naveena already found herself counting each and every single gold coin that was in the treasury with surveying eyes, and Hobson had delegated to her the royal schedule. And Naveena tasked herself with the unfortunate quest to face down both Page's arguments, and Reaver's counterarguments.

The Hero had kept Logan's oppressive tax policies, telling herself that a year of hardship for her subjects was much better than a lifetime of death, and abolished child labor. Page had hugged her after that particular decision, and Reaver looked sorely put out, but had bent at the hip in what she presumed was a bow and walked away, off to create a school under the Hero Queen's name.

Naveena relished silently in the thought that, although Reaver had succeeded in seducing her, it was in fact the Queen who could order him around. Though the redhead did not doubt that Reaver would most certainly retaliate if she attempted anything drastic. But it was nice to have some sort of power she could hold over him, as though he were some hungry little bunny and she were dangling a carrot above him.

At the end of the day, what awaited Naveena was a minutia pile of gold, a heavy weight on her shoulders, and Elliot.

Elliot.

Naveena's heart sank as she saw him, approaching the Castle. They had talked, briefly the previous night, and had shared a bed, but seeing him fully now, with all her thoughts weighing down upon her like a boulder thrust upon her shoulders, she was reminded only too sharply of her lack of feelings. When her cherubic husband pulled her into her arms, Naveena wondered how she could have loved Elliot more than anything before, only to have her feelings so terribly usurped by Reaver.

And what exactly did she feel for _Reaver?_

She had felt love for Elliot. It was something warm and comforting and fuzzy, like a great big teddy bear. Naveena would have done anything for Elliot, once. Before this ordeal with being forced into Reaver's employ and heading into Shadelight, only to face the Darkness. Now, however… there was nothing. Only an emptiness filled with something avaricious and powerful.

Lust threatened to rip her apart and eat her whole. It threatened to rip her from everything she deserved and earned. This thing she felt for Reaver… it was something different than love. The feeling she felt for the fop was monstrous.

But she needed it. It was like fine liquor, addictive and destructive.

Elliot and Naveena pulled apart, and the brunette pressed a kiss to her lips. This kiss was nothing like the two her and Reaver had shared. Elliot's kiss was kind and wanting, it soothed her. Reaver's kisses were angry and biting and _needy, _the kisses of a man who wanted only a single thing.

The revolutionary could have what she needed with Elliot: Stability, love, kindness. But she would not have what she wanted.

What she wanted was chaos. A cheap thrill, one that required such a terrible cost.

It finally struck her, as she stared into Elliot's eyes and held his hands, that he would be devastated if she ever told him of her deal with Reaver, of the offer she had given him that night on the ship. She had gotten him to leave Linda, to run off again with her and become her prince-consort, as he had been meant to be, when he'd been promised to her from birth.

Naveena could not tell him, if such a thing as an affair with Reaver came to fruition. She could not tell him that she had been wrong, that he should have stayed with Linda and run the orphanage together. This was something she just _couldn't do_ to him.

Whatever her feelings were towards Elliot now, as complicated and intricate as they had become, she still cared for him. Knowing Elliot, he would have turned it around, to make it seem as though it had been _his _fault. And not hers.

Their marriage would become a sham, in their hearts. He would love her but she would spend her nights thinking of another man, but it would be better than hurting him. After all, Elliot would not have to find out. He didn't have to discover her infidelity. This was something she could – _no needed – _to keep secret!

But it was a cruel, cruel thing to do.

As Elliot led her into the gardens, explaining that he had asked the cooks to prepare a meal for just the two of them, Naveena found it in her to simply not _care._

* * *

A week passed before Naveena heard or saw Reaver again.

In that week, Naveena managed to somehow not fall victim to the terrible daemon known as a conscious. However, the thought of lying to Elliot, of knowing that their relationship was becoming slowly, slowly and terribly and cruelly one-sided, ate away at her constantly.

It hurt her, cut her deeper than anything ever could, to know that she was doing something to Elliot that was no doubt wicked. But not telling him was the lesser of two evils, wasn't it? Or was that what she had wanted to tell herself?

At the moment, the Queen of Albion sat in the War Room, looking over her minute pile of gold with a pensive expression. Theresa's revelation weighed heavy on her, haunting everything. Nightmares of the Crawler, of his six black eyes and vicious grin plagued her constantly, and when she awoke, it was always within Elliot's arms. Often, Elliot questioned her about her nightmares, as he held her in their bed, a worried expression pressed against his face, rocking her gently to sleep.

But Naveena remained tight-lipped. As a young child, she had learned the unhealthy coping mechanism of bottling in her thoughts and emotions and dreams. Sparrow and Logan had done the same, and mother, daughter, and son often preferred to keep a chin up and a straight face. It was Sparrow's belief that the royal family had to appear strong, unwavering, like rocks.

All in all, it was a dangerous mechanism, and often Naveena's emotions spilled over with the fury of a volcano, and she did impulsive things. Like approach Reaver and tell him to come back when he no longer thought her a conquest. Or to do strange Quests for stalkerish women who wanted a man's undergarments.

Speaking of the whole Quest that had gotten her into this mess; Naveena realized that she had not gotten Reaver's underpants for Benjamina. She'd failed in that pursuit. And Naveena also realized that Reaver and she had not quite mentioned the hilarity that had ensued after she was caught by him. The Queen chuckled. It had been harrowing at the time, and maddening, and it had shattered her ego beyond belief, but looking back on it… it had been amusing.

And she got out of the whole ordeal unscathed. She was alive, Reaver hadn't succeeded in betraying her, and after going through the whole process, she had gained a valuable ally in the form of the Industrial maverick. Others, of course, would not see Reaver as being valuable, or an ally, and Naveena supposed she was foolish to even dare think that he didn't gain something by roping her fate with his, but she considered his… input valuable enough for some.

Anyway, the Queen stood in front of a minute pile of gold, mulling over ideas and schemes on how to get more gold, when Hobson hobbled his way into the treasury. Naveena, who found herself absolutely _despising, _and this was an understatement, the fat little replacement of Jasper in her first week of being Queen, turned around and wrinkled her nose.

Hobson seemed out-of-breath, as though he'd run all the way across the Castle to the treasury in search of her, and he bowed low, gasping. The man took a handkerchief from a pocket of his silk clothes and dabbed it across his forehead, wiping away drops of sweat that had gathered on his bald little head.

"Ah, Your Majesty," Hobson bowed again. He seemed and sounded rather excited, and Naveena crossed her fingers and hoped that he wasn't going to give her another royal schedule. "I've been looking all over the Castle for you!"

"And it's a shame you found me, Hobson." Naveena decided not to let her dislike for this stubby man be hidden. Walter, Avo did she love the older man, had chosen quite poorly with this one. "I was hoping to spend the entire day without worrying about the damned schedule."

And it wasn't a lie. Naveena would have given anything in the past week to live as a princess again, with Logan - and he'd been hiding somewhere the whole week prior now that she thought of it - worrying about the Kingdom and not her.

Ah, the days of her misspent youth seemed so very far away. She could already feel the stress of being a monarch, a leader, creeping up on the edges of her eyes. Taking slight pride in her appearance, for she was a person and taking pride in something was all a part of that complex terror known as human nature, the thought of having wrinkles sent a shiver down her spine. Though, how the shiver managed to get down there with her blasted corset cutting off all air and blood circulation around and in her body was a complete mystery to her.

"No, Your Majesty," Hobson seemed to ignore her not-quite-subtle-but-slightly jab, and stood at full height, which wasn't much as he was rather short for a man. "Master Reaver is within the castle, requesting an audience. I suggest you don't dally!" Hobson's eyes glimmered greedily. His… infatuation with Reaver was disturbing in the least. "He no doubt has plans on how to pillage the townsfolk and get this treasury rolling in gold…" Hobson licked his lips when the last word passed his lips. Gold was Hobson's most favorite word.

It ranked up there with lovely, Your, and Majesty in the amount of times he mentioned or said it.

Naveena's heart hammered, skipping and the Queen nearly let out a slew of muttered curses that would have made a pirate, or Avo forbid, _Reaver himself _blush. The deviant had the habit of showing up unannounced, as though he were entitled to doing so. She bit her lip, contemplating for a moment the idea of simply running off and leaving Reaver. Sod his audience. But the thought of him, here, after the moment they had shared in the ship, on the brink of doing something—

And what if that was why he had arrived? What if he were to admit that Naveena was not just a conquest, or one of his whores or, or, or…

"Where, Hobson?" She snapped suddenly, and Naveena found herself toying with the wedding band on her ring finger, rolling it over, the inscription engraved on the outside of it mocking her incredulity.

"Ah, in the study, Your Majesty." He bowed again, walking backwards to take his leave of her.

Naveena stood alone in the treasury for a moment, and once again looked back at her pile of gold. For a few minutes, the weight of the world was lifted from her shoulders, and she forgot her responsibility as Queen, as a Hero, and as a leader.

She went forward to go and find Reaver within the study.

* * *

**This is a transition chapter. Now, **_**now **_**it's time for the real fun to begin!**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	17. Moment of Tension

Avarice

Chapter 17: Moment of Tension

"_Oh you're supposed to care,"_

"_But you never make me scream,"_

"_You never make me scream!"_

"_Oh, it's not fair!"_

_Lily Allen – "Not Fair"_

* * *

The Queen of Albion found her most debauched subject flipping through pages of thin manuscript in her study. Reaver did not look up at her when she creaked open the door, walking into the room almost tremulously, as though she were a shrinking violet or an Auroran wallflower.

Straightening her posture, Naveena observed Reaver as he leaned back in one of the expensive chairs of the study, the manuscript balanced on his knee as he unenthusiastically flipped through the pages, too quickly to actually be reading them.

"I'm afraid you're not going to find a single book of erotica within this study, Reaver." Naveena clenched her fists and, like a cat when backed into a corner, tried to make herself bigger than she actually was. "And I'd appreciate it if you left my books _alone."_

She emphasized the word, stretched it and made it real, gave it meaning to a man who perhaps would not know the word alone's definition. For as hated as the man was, he was lusted for. Some described him, and saw him, as having the appearance of a seraph.

In truth, he was little more than a devil in a white suit.

Reaver ran a hair through his thick dark hair, having discarded the ridiculous top hat on the table he was leaning again, watching the Queen with that dark, twinkling look in his eyes, like she was a bug crucified upon a spindly needle and left to be observed.

Naveena surely felt like one, and she stiffened when Reaver replied, "Now, what need would _I _have for such decadent books, Your Majesty," He said the honorific as though it were a silly word, nodding his head in what he perceived perhaps to be a nod of respect. "I have _you _to fantasize about, and I have _others _to accomplish such _besoins charnue."_

Naveena paced about the study, moving to study a strange artifact across the room, deliberately avoiding facing him to prevent his perception of her blush. The artifact was spiny, black and artful. It resembled, quite eerily, her current mood, with its twisting shapes. It was like the great black tendrils that had taken residence within her stomach, roiling and gyrating with each movement, motion, breath, heartbeat. A certain light-headedness threatened her mind, a fog thick and misty and utterly gray.

Instead of saying something, _anything, _like a retort or a recoil, she muttered, "Why did you want this audience?"

And she had wanted to know, she did. Because there was so much doubt, with the fate of Albion, with Elliot, with the blurring line between what she needed and she wanted and at the moment, Naveena wanted nothing more - the redhead would have given anything in the world simply for it – than to know something for _sure._

"Why, down to business already?" Chair legs scraped against the stony floors of the study. Reaver picked up his hat and placed it gently upon his head, an amused smile crossing his lips. Twisting his cheeks, turning him into that devil, that maverick so many people saw him as. "_Ma belle, _haven't you learned by now?"

"Learned what, Reaver?"

In a matter of a second, he was right at her back, fingers digging into her collarbone, lips pressed against the line of her jaw, "That _I_ have a very lovely business policy. It requires the mixture of business and…" The next word was purred. "_Pleasure."_

"I gave you my offer." Naveena turned, and there was an uncomfortable closeness when she did, where she was trapped between both Reaver and the strange black sculpture. Her blue eyes looked deep into his brown, and it was his turn to feel like a crucified bug. "And I gave you my conditions."

Reaver clicked his tongue, looked at her with arrogantly half-closed eyes, and slowly he backed away, though it seemed to be a great amount of work to do so.

"Very well, down to _business _then," He looked at her, cocky in his manner and she stare back at him. "Such a _tease _you are, my dear. I find it almost off-putting. From the day to attempted to pillage my mansion, to the here and now you've done nothing but _deny _yourself. Such strength it must take, _Your Majesty."_

"_Business, _Reaver, business."

Reaver's cheeks twisted again; there were dimples in his white smile. An imperfection in the otherwise perfect pale skin. Naveena glared at him, silently, though the attempt to make herself seem fierce, strong failed. Her stomach twisted again, as though several rambunctious children were jumping about in her intestines, playing hopscotch or kick-the-chicken or whatever.

And then he pulled away, stepped back, turned away from her. She watched him cross the room, watched his fingers as they practically caressed the spine of the book he'd been reading, like it was a lover or a cherished maiden. Naveena grimaced. Something alluring and entirely inappropriate came to mind, and she forced her gaze to smooth floors.

"My lovely Queen, I've been thinking-"

"You've been putting thought into something other than pursuits of the flesh? How extraordinary."

He laughed, it was a dark chuckle, something soft as sin, like water moving over rocks, "Well, I wouldn't exactly put it _just so. _Hasn't it been an entire week since your glorious insurrection reached its climax? A climax much like that of the noble Lady Maria's, why—"

Naveena blushed, "You didn't ask for an audience just to speak of your exploits. And yes, it has been a week."

Reaver waggled his eyebrows, inappropriately, and looked over his shoulders at her. The Queen clenched her fists, balled them into little balls of steel. Her gaze moved from the crevices in the stone floors to him, her eyes hardening, narrowing. Slits of something powerful and rebellious.

"You would be terribly surprised, kitten," Reaver talked with his hands. She noticed that about him. It was awfully charismatic-looking, something a proper businessman would do. And she also noticed she was becoming terribly enthralled with his hands. "I always enjoy speaking of myself to the pretty people."

"Enough, Reaver." Her blush grew deeper and darker, and the Queen avoided his gaze again, fiddling with the fabric of her finery. The command didn't sound like a command. It was more like a form of pleading.

"Very well, _ma belle," _Reaver appeared exceedingly pleased with her embarrassment. "As I was beginning to say, before you, Your Majesty, so rudely interrupted me, I was thinking of having a _party_, to celebrate Your Highness's oh great and lovely destruction of our previous ruler's reign…"

"A party." With the weight of a possible attack from the Darkness and the Crawler coming. With all the revelations that had occurred concerning the fate of Albion. "You want to have a bloody party?"

"Well, blood _would _make for a rather macabre decoration, but I suppose it can be arranged," He touched his fingers to his chin, in a pose that seemed almost thoughtful. He continued, like an afterthought, "Well, if Your Majesty would like it…"

"Oh, Avo no!" Anything to divert him from the idea!

"Very well," Reaver frowned. "You never let me have any fun! As I was saying, do you not think a party would perhaps… distract our dear, wonderful citizens," And he says that with as much acid as one could manage. "From all this business with the Crawler and the Darkness and what-have-you?"

"You… want to give my subjects a… _break?" _She found that one hard to believe. Harder to believe than a good deal of the things that came out of Reaver's mouth. To make a show of it, she raised her left hand and was about to pinch it to check if she was having some bizarre dream but before she could do so, Reaver snatched up the hand and raised it quickly to his lips.

Naveena, as she usually did when confronted with bold advances, blushed and Reaver looked up at her through long, dark lashes. His eyes smoldered, in that seductive way that reminded her, perhaps, of a wolf or a cat or a Balverine prepared to eat her.

"And you, Your Majesty, will be my darling little _invitte d'honneur, _as a lady of your status is meant to be!" And there it was. The catch.

"I…" She pulled her hand away, feverishly, looked at him, bewildered and taken aback. He grinned like the Avo damned Cheshire Cat. "And where, pray tell, were you planning on having this party?"

Reaver outstretched his arms, gesturing to the confines of the study, though Naveena knew he meant much more than just the small, sparse room, "Why, the castle, of course! My manor, is of course, as you know, unusable thanks to your brother's barbaric methods!"

"Then fix it."

"I've mentioned before how hard it is to find decent staff that will work for the minimum, yes?" He cocked a dark, plucked eyebrow at her. As though she were supposed to know everything. "But I assure you, Your Majesty, when I find such a delightful group of people, I will be able to have such grand parties within my manor once more!"

Naveena glared at him, remembering quite clearly the last _'party' _she had attended at Reaver's, "And you will no doubt find more people to feed to your pets for amusement again, yes?"

Reaver laughed, it was dark and terrible; the laugh of a devil, or a demon, "Ah, _ma belle, _you know me much too well!"

The Queen sighed, but looked out the lone window of the study, where sunlight filtered in only slightly, through the thick glass that acted to protect the castle from the cold. It would, perhaps, be good for her people. To celebrate. To find something good in all the bad.

In the end, after a few moments of contemplative thinking, she acquiesced, "Fine. We will have your damned party."

Reaver looked absolutely ecstatic. It was as though he were a young boy and she had gone and handed him a basket of sweets, "Excellent idea, Your Majesty!" Naveena wasn't sure if he was giddy over the fact that he had succeeded in tugging her strings again or over the fact that he would be throwing another party to satisfy his needs. "I will make the arrangements _immediatement!"_

With that, he took his leave, snatching up his cane which was leaning against the table and giving her a too-lascivious wink before shutting the door behind him.

Naveena stood there, frozen. Like a statue.

What had she gotten herself into, now?

* * *

Elliot fumbled with the finery that Naveena had forced him into, fiddling with the ruffles on his sleeves until his wife had snapped at him to cut it out. She, herself, was wearing a dress designed by Jasper that was, entirely, very tight and accentuated everything about her curves that she didn't want them too. Naveena decided she would chew Jasper out later, when this entire debacle of a party was over.

"I don't like this." Walter stated, bluntly, as the three of them stood on the balcony, watching as people, peasants and nobles and workers from Industrial. He too, had been forced into wearing something fancy, but had insisted on keeping his sword and gun. Naveena couldn't blame him, really.

"I know." She replied, and she watched with growing disconcertion as Reaver finally stepped in, dressed in red and gold and without his hat and cane. He looked… younger somehow. If it were possible. Naveena looked at him, glared really, as he spoke benignly with a rather pretty woman who resembled, if it were possible, the maid, Ada, from his manor. "Me too."

"Be careful, princess," Walter grunted. "The old Hero Queen'd come back to hunt me down if anything happened to you while I was still around."

At this, Naveena let out a nervous laugh, as did Elliot.

"She _was_ a Hero Queen," Said Elliot, eager to put in his two bits. "It's possible, Walter."

"Mother would do that, wagging her finger and all!" Naveena grinned, and Walter shot her a you're-not-helping look.

Walter stalked off, possibly to find Logan, though Naveena knew he'd been avoiding her brother ever since she spared him. It was possible that Walter would never forgive her brother, not for what he'd done. It didn't matter to the older man that he did what he did for reasons one would describe as being grey in morality. Logan had done too much bad, and Naveena doubted Walter would ever forgive the man.

"Well, shall we?" Elliot pulled Naveena out of her thoughts by grabbing at her sleeve and she looked up into his features. So carefree, so kind and cherubic…

She felt something twist in her heart. But what she was doing… was helping him, wasn't it? It was better for Elliot that—

The Queen didn't want to think of that. Not right now.

The smile she returned was strained, at best, "Of course. Let us greet our host, shall we?"

Naveena and Elliot descended the stairs, holding hands. Many people bowed respectfully to their Queen and her prince-consort, their glorified King, and Reaver bent at the hip, in his arrogant way. The redhead noticed, with a certain satisfaction, that Reaver eyed the couple's joined hands with slight disgust, as if repelled by the idea that she and Elliot were together, that while it was the deviant who held her true attentions, there would always be the matter of who she stayed with.

"Your Majesty, how punctual you are, as always!" He stood to full height easily towering over both her and everyone else in the room, even though he had, once more, abandoned that top hat of his in exchange for appearing a tad casual. Well, as casual as one could appear when one was a man of as much vanity and striking as Reaver.

"Of course." Naveena replied, politely. She felt Elliot join their hands together tightly, the tips of his delicate, lightly calloused fingers fitting perfectly into the spaces between her knuckles.

Reaver nodded to her, looking at her with smoldering eyes, before moving on to mingle with his guests. He was quick, graceful as he crossed the room, and his movements seemed to almost sync with the music of the lute players. Couples, mostly nobles, collected themselves and began to dance.

Elliot took both of her hands, gathering them, and placed one of her hands on his shoulder. He put his free hand on her hip, and the two slowly began to dance. Naveena caught the eyes of many women who looked at her enviously as the two began to dance, and she wondered: _Am I really that lucky?_

Naveena peered into Elliot's face, admired the curve of his full lips as he smiled, the slightly flawed skin, covered with freckles dashed across the bridge of his nose. He was sweet and kind and attentive… and the Queen of Albion did not want that.

She was a Hero. Heroes always headed for danger. The former prince-consort of Albion, Sparrow's husband and her and Logan's father, had once been a bandit out of Westcliff. Sparrow had demanded he clean up when they moved to the Castle, dressed in something other than dark leathers. Demanded that he comb his hair. Naveena remembered little of her father, for he had died of disease not long after she had reached her fifth year of life. What she remembered was a long, black braid of hair. She had braided flowers into that hair when she was little. When her father had died, she then braided flowers in Logan's equally dark hair instead.

Perhaps her and her mother had more in common than just their looks and their abilities and their status. Perhaps her love for the dangerous and for bad ideas was hereditary. Maybe it was carried in the blood.

With Elliot, she could have a good life.

With Reaver, she could have a fun life.

The two turned and turned, dancing to the sound of the music and Naveena found herself searching for Reaver amongst the crowd. She caught him dancing with the look-a-like of Ada, though this woman had blue eyes. Not those sparkling green. Reaver, as if feeling her gaze upon him, looked up and the two locked eyes.

He smiled, wide and wolfish and cruel, and dipped his partner low to the ground. The girl giggled, holding onto Reaver's neck, digging long fingers into his skin. Reaver noticed as Naveena frowned, and pulled the girl forward, twirling her before boldly pressing a kiss to her lips. The girl swooned, and watched as Reaver moved away.

"Are you alright, love?" Elliot's voice brought her gaze back to his face. Her eyes met worried brown.

"Ah, yes. Simply…" She ground out the last word as though it were spittle. "_Distracted."_

Elliot looked very worried, and it bothered her, "You're thinking about… that, aren't you?"

She had told him of her trip to Aurora, and though he was bothered by the fact that she had lied, he was more worried over the fact that the Crawler had found her and taken her. Even now, her dreams were haunted with shadows darker than any she'd seen, and Elliot was there to hold her in the nights when she awoke, drenched in sweat, ready to scream for help. To scream for Walter, or Jasper, or Logan, or her mother.

"Hm." Was her answer, and it was all she would give. Naveena looked away, finding a sudden urge to be alone. "I'm going to go find something to drink."

Elliot nodded, smiling again, and let the Queen of Albion go. No one noticed that she passed by the drinks, looking to make sure Elliot was not gazing after her. Naveena found a very terrible need to be alone, and the Queen thought it would be best to satisfy the urge now. What the Queen wanted she got, after all.

Naveena moved through the gilded hallways of the Castle, in search of a secluded room, far from Elliot, Reaver, the party, its guests and the music. She had passed through the castle her entire life, and she knew of a place where she could be alone.

Opening the doors and closing them, she found herself in a small room with nothing but a piano and a few chairs. She heard nothing but a dull, muted sound. The sound of revelry as more and more people joined in the celebration, the sound of people getting drunk and dancing and whispering saucy gossip in between dances.

She sat down at the piano, alone, her fingers brushing against the keys. As a young girl, she had loved playing the piano for people, as it was a talent she had found fun and enjoyable. Now, she had no audience, and she loved that even more.

Little did she know, that a devil had followed her and now watched from a corner of the room.

* * *

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	18. Lady Greensleeves

Avarice

Chapter 18: Lady Greensleeves

_Thou couldst desire no earthly thing,_

_But still thou hadst it readily,_

_The music still to play and sing,_

_And yet thou wouldst not love me._

_Greensleeves – Unknown_

* * *

Fingers touched the piano keys, and a dull, thrumming sound arced through the air like electricity. It was beautiful in its crude simplicity, beautiful in the way only music could be. For the first time since that fateful morning many months ago when she had awoken to Jasper speaking of her royal upbringing or lack thereof, Naveena felt as though she could breathe.

She was alone, and it was wonderful. There was no Elliot, no Jasper or Walter or Page or Sabine. There were no thoughts, and the weight of the world was not resting upon her shoulders at the moment like two lead weights, and the crown that had marked her as the most important person in all Albion had been tossed carelessly onto an armchair without a single thought.

For a brief moment, she was not the Queen of Albion or the Hero or the Savior of the people. She was a woman. A woman with just as many flaws and perfections as the average person. No one was treating her like a glass doll, and she was not being regarded with cold respect. There was nothing here, except her and her piano.

And she loved it. Being alone. She had not been alone the entire week since her ascent to the throne and it felt trapping. It felt as though the people, Page and Reaver and all others, had taken her ankles and wrists and strapped metal weights to them, had thrown her in the dungeon to sit contemplating the bars of her prison.

She had needed this, more than Elliot had needed her to be with him at Reaver's party, more than the people needed to see their savior. This was selfish, running away from Reaver and Elliot to be ultimately alone, but she didn't care.

The Queen of Albion liked it this way.

Naveena's fingertips touched the edges of the ivory keys, and slowly she played a song she could remember learning. When she was younger, when she learned this song, her mother would sit in an armchair with a cup of tea, and sing the tune.

And now it was Naveena, not Sparrow, who sang, _"Alas, my love, you do me wrong/To cast me off discourteously/For I have loved you well and long/Delighting in your company…"_

Though she could not see him, and she didn't know he was there, Reaver took a seat in one of the chairs behind her, grinning to himself.

"_Greensleeves was all my joy/Greensleeves was my delight/Greensleeves was my heart of gold/Ah, who but my lady Greensleeves…"_

Her voice was slightly off-key, not like Sparrow's, which had been soft and sing-song, which lilted each vowel as though caressing it. It was strangely pretty in its own way, a pretty imperfection.

"_Your vows you've broken/Like my heart/Oh, why did you so enrapture me?/Now I remain in a world apart/But my heart remains in captivity…"_

Reaver crossed his legs, sipping at the glass of wine he had brought with him when he had noticed Naveena slipping away from his party. She had not yet noticed him, so enthralled with her music.

"_Ah, Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu/To God I pray to prosper thee/For I am still thy lover true/Come once again and love me…"_

The music began to fade, and ended in a slow melody annunciated by the humming of the Queen, until finally it cut off abruptly. It was then, in that moment of silence, that Reaver decided to make his presence known. The deviant began to clap, slowly, deliberately, and the sound had made Naveena swivel in shock. Her face paled, and she stood up from the piano bench, like a little child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Ah, _ma belle, _beautiful. Such a lovely tune that was!" Reaver lolled, smirking sadistically as Naveena blushed red to the tips of her ears. "Accentuated only by your _delicieux _voice!"

"I… Reaver you…" She looked away, embarrassed, fingers curled into fists. "You followed me in here."

"_Amour, _you retired from the party so soon. Why, I _worried _for your safety!" He shrugged, lazily placing the now empty wine glass on an end table, where it landed with a slight clinking of glass. And then he stood, and so did she, abruptly stepping over the piano bench.

"I wanted to be alone." She said, short, curt, glaring.

Reaver grinned, placing a hand on her shoulder, looming over Naveena. The Queen froze, looking up into Reaver's face, looking at the powdered countenance, the tattooed heart just below his eye. And his eyes… his eyes swirled with flecks of green and brown, and held something just below the surface that hypnotized her, held her there within his grasp.

And then the deviant lowered his head, and Naveena could do nothing but stare into his eyes, watching as those long-lashed orbs came closer and closer. But then Reaver got too close, and Naveena regained her sense, and stopped the fop from coming closer, pressing her hands against his neck.

"No." She whispered, but there lacked a certain edge to the word. A strength that had disappeared. "I… I am not a conquest."

"Oh," Reaver disregarded the hands on his collarbone and attempted to get closer, looking down upon Naveena. She broke their locked eyes, instead observing her hands. "_Indeed, _Your Majesty. You are no conquest," He smiled wryly, wolfishly, a certain twist in the dimples of his cheeks that sent shivers down Naveena's spine. "You, _ma belle, _are a _milestone _within a sea of conquests."

Her hands fell away from his collarbone, dangling loosely at her sides. The second she let go, Reaver pounced, snatching Naveena up with such urgency that it almost frightened her. He pressed his lips against hers, one hand grabbing the curve of her buttocks and the other pinning her arm, pressing her against the piano.

A loud, ungainly sound echoed around the room, and Naveena gasped, one of her hands bracing the piano behind her, letting out a lighter echo. Her other hand wrapped around Reaver's neck, bringing him close.

They parted, and Reaver hooked a finger in one of the laces holding her corset together, and whispered, smirking, "That song you were singing, _ma belle… _what was it about?"

Naveena glared at him, and answered while he undid the laces, "It was composed by a famous leader. A man so corrupt and cruel and evil. He had six wives, you know, beheaded a few of them even. And that song… they say it was composed by him."

Reaver had half the laces undone already, and trailed fingers across the edge of her shoulders, and she gave an involuntary shiver.

He asked, scoffing, "And you truly believe that? Such an ungainly man would never record something so… serene."

"Oh? I thought you would sympathize with him. He reminded me of you." She looked at him, pressed against the piano awkwardly, and watched as he laughed.

"Ah, you." He was untying the laces carefully, deliberately slowly as to anger her.

And what was she doing? There was a party outside, anyone could just walk in and find them in this most precarious position. And then what? Elliot would be destroyed, her alliances would view her with a wary glance, any decision she made would be ultimately weighed, as though she would show favoritism.

But she needed this. Wanted it. Craved it with every fiber of her soul.

She wanted to fill the silence the two had at the moment, and shifted, "To answer your question… about the song… it's about a woman turning down a man, and the man lamenting his lost love. And no, I don't think that leader composed it."

"Why not?" He was nearing the end of the damnable laces.

This time she looked directly into his eyes, and watched him as she replied, quietly, "Because that is a romanticist's hope, to think that a monster could love."

For once in his life, Reaver did not speak. He only tugged on the end of the laces, revealing Naveena to him, in all her splendor. The Queen held his hands, and slowly removed the twin gloves of his and dropped them to the ground beside the piano. The deviant pushed the piano bench out of the way and Naveena sat atop the piano keys, her legs crossed, watching Reaver as he moved to stand in front of her.

And then he moved to removed her dress, the expensive and silky fabric joining the gloves on the ground. The air bit at Naveena's exposed skin, but she sat there, naked, not moving to cover herself.

"I am not a conquest," She repeated, looking down upon Reaver as though she were sitting upon her throne. "Let me make that very clear."

Reaver said nothing, only stared at her, grinning.

* * *

Naveena awoke, hours later, slouched in one of the armchairs of that room, with her clothes back in place, her short red hair in disarray, and with a sticky feeling that she thought would never wash away. Her head ached, and there was a terrible soreness in her legs. It took her a moment, as she opened her eyes to a great big blur, to remember what had occurred last night.

The Queen groaned, wiping her face with her hand, squeezing her eyes shut as a headache threatened to overtake her. Reaver was gone, leaving as quickly as he'd come. At some point in the night she had put her clothes back on, remembering that the two of them were still in a very public area of the castle, and Reaver had left to rejoin the party.

No words were spoken. And there didn't need to be any.

This wasn't over.

Naveena dragged herself from the armchair, and soon enough she found herself crawling into bed beside a snoring Elliot. The sun had not yet risen, so she'd awoken early, just before the dawn. Understandable. She'd been resting in an incredibly uncomfortable armchair. She turned her back to Elliot, not daring, not after what she'd done, to face her husband. Even she did not have the audacity to do so.

She awoke hours later, with the pre-dawn outside painting the sky pink and gold, and with Elliot gone. Her husband had probably escaped to the kitchens, as he liked to do, but not without kissing her cheek and ogling her for a few moments. Naveena liked to think that she knew Elliot like the back of her hand.

But he did not know her. And that made her heart sink terribly. She had changed, from that day in the Throne Room when Logan had forced her hand, and she had made a terribly selfish decision. And now she had made yet another selfish choice.

But the Hero Queen did not care.

Hobson gave her yet another royal schedule, though this one involved the rehiring of castle staff. Maids, cooks, servants and the like. It was boring and tedious, and Naveena spent a greater deal of time yawning rather than talking. But afterwards, she found Logan lurking outside the Throne Room.

"Sister," The way he spoke, it was as if he was accosting her, really. "We need to talk."

The Queen stood, and with slight chagrin realized that Logan was taller than her. Even now, when they stood on equal ground, he could make her quiver in her boots. She hadn't seen him, not even a sliver of him, since the trial. He'd been so quiet, so reclusive, that she almost forgot him. And now he was seeking her out? A part of her, a small, paranoid part, found that highly strange.

"Of course," But she smiled at him, and he only frowned back. "About what, brother?"

"In private." He led her along the hall, and she trailed behind him, yawning. She was incredibly tired, as though someone had leeched all the energy from her. It didn't help that it was an incredibly hot day as well, and she was sweating terribly underneath her clothes. Though _that _could have been the trepidation that was connected with her brother's sudden reappearance.

Eventually, the two siblings found themselves in the War Room.

Naveena started first, shooting her brother a tired smile as she spoke, "Where have you been, anyway? You just up and disappeared when the trial was over."

Logan stood, watching her as she took a seat. When she was younger, she'd always dreaded the gaze he was giving her now. It was the gaze with the calculations behind it, the one that watched her every movement, her every twitch or breath. When she got older, she'd associated it with paranoia. And though she loved her brother, would have liked to believe he was infallible just as she did so many years ago when she was still a naïve little girl, she found herself wishing she had her weapons at her side.

"Walter went to retrieve me for the party. When we returned, both you and Reaver were gone." Logan was watching her so carefully, that she felt like a bird in captivity. "I want answers, sister."

A flare of anger started in her stomach, like some great angry beast released from its cage. But she swallowed it and lied, smiling, "I went to the music room. The one with the piano, you remember, right? Where we learned to play piano. Reaver probably went off to a corner somewhere with some woman or man or whatever."

Logan stared at her, searching for something.

And then, "You didn't go to bed after the party."

"Fell asleep on the piano, funnily enough." Her smile was beginning to strain. "I don't think it's your place to question where I am. I am the Queen and all."

Logan opened his mouth to retort, but stopped, and closed. Naveena stood, placed a hand on Logan's shoulder, and frowned.

"Brother, I appreciate your worry, but I can take care of myself." Now it was her turn to look into Logan's face, and search. "And please, don't hole yourself up again."

* * *

Reaver awoke in his bed, tangled between a man and two women, and smelling of sex, sweat and drink. It was a common scene for him to wake up to, though there was always the few occasional days where he woke up to something strange and odd and delightful in its depravity, but still. Reaver stretched lazily, knocking an elbow carelessly into one of the girls' heads and kicking the rather muscular left leg of the male next to him.

The girl groaned, the man snored softly, and the other girl was left undisturbed by the stirrings of the people around her.

Reaver turned and shoved the man beside him out of bed, where he tumbled to the ground with a loud thud, gasping. The deviant yawned, and proceeded to step over the man, and then barked at one of the maids within the room to go and prepare him breakfast.

He dressed in a flimsy cream robe, made of the finest and most expensive silk that money could buy, and shot the maid that brought him his breakfast because she'd burned his toast.

"Get rid of this mess, will you?" He ordered another servant, and the young man tripped over himself in fright as he carried the dead maid away. Reaver grinned and flung his burned toast the ground in disgust, where a second maid picked it up with haste, moving quickly to throw it away. Reaver resigned himself to eating his eggs and drinking his morning glass of _Noctem Pectus, _a rather expensive wine imported from the faraway Northern Wastes.

When he was finished with his meal, he stripped and took a long, hot bath, and had the servants kick out his bedfellows, throwing them out of the house, naked. He kept their clothes. One of the young, buxom ladies had come into his manor dressed in a rather delectable violet dress, which had been festooned with black ruffles. He had that remarkable piece of fabric washed as soon as he could.

Reaver saw no reason why it should go to waste. Perhaps it would make for a lovely bribe to Her Majesty, the Queen. And ah, such a lovely night he had had with that goddess. Of course, he had no doubt that the Queen would not be able to resist his charms forever, but he hadn't expected to break down her walls – both figuratively and literally – so easily and in such a short time. He'd expected her to remain frigid for a while longer, as icy as that _la glace reine _was.

But he was certainly not complaining. Oh, Avo no!

It was while he was washing his back, thinking on what sort of terrors he would exact today that a maid had entered his washroom, holding something intrinsically familiar.

"Er… M-M-Master Reaver?" The maid was blushing, trying to avoid looking at Reaver directly. Reaver leaned back in the huge marble tub, watching with amusement as a wooden duck floated in the water around him. He didn't remember buying that.

He lifted his eyes to look up at the maid, smirking to himself, and purring, "Ye-e-e-e-s, _la sexe dame? _Have you come to join me? I would _love _the company."

The maid was so red she could have been a beet. She answered, stammering, "N-No, sir, I simply wanted to give y-y-you a d-delivery."

It was then that his eyes traveled from the girl's face to the package she held in her arms. Immediately, he paled, and his breath caught, and he reached for the Dragonstomper that he'd placed next to him on the lip of the tub. He shot the maid, watched as she gasped, dropping the Dark Seal on the ground with a loud, deafening clatter.

"_Merde." _Reaver whispered to himself, staring at the Dark Seal as the girl's blood pooled around it. So it was that time of the year again. He sighed, finishing up in the tub before yelling for his servants to clean up yet another body and mop up the blood.

Later, he sat alone in his room, sipping a second glass of wine, the Dark Seal set out in front of him on a table. He would have to return to the Wraithmarsh soon, in order to appease his… _friends. _

And who would he sacrifice this time?

It was in that moment, staring at the grooved wheel of the Dark Seal, that Reaver began to formulate a devious plan.

* * *

**Became **_**very **_**bored with this chapter in the middle. And then I came to Reaver's half of the chapter and went "WOOOOOHOOOO!"**

**An e-cookie to anyone who spots three Easter Eggs within this chapter. ;-)**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	19. Bait and Switch

Avarice

Chapter 19: Bait And Switch

_And the tears come streaming down your face,_

_When you lose something you can't replace,_

_When you love someone but it goes to waste…_

_Could it be worse…?_

"_Fix You" – Coldplay_

* * *

Reaver had asked for a private audience. With her.

The Queen of Albion's heart hammered in her chest as she waved away her guards. They looked leery, very much so, about leaving the Queen alone with Reaver. But they didn't know what she knew. They knew nothing of the night of passion they had spent within the music room, or of the unwanted _feelings_ that had taken root between the two of them.

If Reaver sensed her starry-eyed glances, or the way her palms sweat, he made no mention of it. It would have amused him, probably. Because, after all, it was _him. _The man who collected hearts just as many times as he had broken them, almost always on whimsy. When the guards had left, Naveena attempted to glower down at him, forcing thoughts of _that night _into the back of her mind. They hadn't spoken of it.

Naveena doubted that they ever would. And where did this place them anyway? If he had done this, perhaps, in hopes that she would favor him… no. Never. The idea of having Reaver's approval paled in comparison to saving the kingdom. But she wouldn't have put it past him.

"Now, now," Reaver tapped the ground with his cane, sending a small, irritating sound echo around the walls around them. It was amazing, how quiet it was in the Throne Room when there were only a few people within. One could have heard a pin drop. "My lovely Queen, such a terrible glower does not suit those pretty features…"

Almost on instinct, she let her features relax, but she gripped the armrests of her high-backed throne with bony fingers.

"You…" Her mouth felt uncomfortably dry. "Wanted an audience?"

"A _very private _audience, _ma belle." _Reaver was looking up at her with smoldering eyes. "Why don't you come down from that throne, hmm? Save me the dreadfully long walk."

Something didn't seem right. Like a jigsaw puzzle in reverse, the pieces falling backwards, taking away the complete picture. It was something in her gut, a knee-jerk reaction that made her leery about being alone with Reaver, though she had been alone with him many times before. In the library – that first encounter – and on the ship, in the desert, the cave, the temple where she had lost and regained her sight, and then the music room. Where everything had culminated into something passionate.

All those times, she had had no qualms. But there was something about _this. _This… disquiet, though the room was near silent, that settled in her. It was strange. Bizarre, really.

Sparrow had always taught her to go against instinct. _Knee-jerk reactions got you killed,_ she would say, her bright eyes darkening as though she were remembering a particularly unpleasant memory, _and they almost always get others killed as well._

Naveena had never prodded about whatever she'd been talking about, but in this aspect, she was positive that Sparrow was wrong.

But she stood anyway. And walked towards the deviant, but not without shooting her hammer, which had been leaning against the throne, a quick glance. She was sure Reaver had noticed this, because when she looked back into his unfortunately handsome face, he was smirking wolfishly. The smirk was irritating and she desperately wished to wipe it from his features.

"Is this about—" She started, but stopped, feeling the blush rise to her cheeks. Her eyes traveled everywhere, never once focusing on a single thing. "I…"

"My, red truly is your color, Your Majesty." Reaver lifted a hand to her chin, lifting her eyes to look into his. Yes, that smirk was insufferable. It was the one he wore when he believed himself to be a cat who had caught the canary. "But that… _delicieux _night is not why I've come, no not at all! Though, if a certain Queen were willing to… _rehash _what has already been done…"

Naveena took his wrist and flung it from her chin, glaring at him, strands of her red hair falling into her eyes. She did not like being toyed with. But Reaver's smirk only seemed to grow.

"Ah, back to _that _routine are we?" Reaver, who apparently did not understand her silent warning, was now reaching up and stroking her shoulder. "My, such a frigid woman you are, Your Majesty, to set up your walls so _soon… _but I will break them. Do be sure of that."

"You came here for a private audience," She growled, watching him closely with eyes that could only be described as being chips of ice. He was still stroking her shoulder, moving his fingers, inching them slowly, to the curve of her neck. If her hair was long, Naveena had no doubt that his fingers would be tangled in it. "Not to seduce me."

Reaver stepped closer, so close in fact that her breasts brushed against his chest for a moment. And the blush on her cheeks grew in intensity.

"Simply multi-tasking, Your Majesty." His face leaned in, and she could smell his breath. It smelled of mint, and she could recall vividly the taste of his tongue in her mouth. Soon, she found herself staring at the curve of his lips, ogling them. "Such is a skill of a business tycoon…" He was purring, purposefully.

Reaver's arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her into him, and Naveena gasped. Her heart, which had already been hammering before, was beating so loudly that she swore she could hear it in her ears. Her palms sweated, trapped in the fabric of her gloves, prisoners to clothing. Reaver pressed his lips to the meeting point of her neck and shoulders, and bit, nipping.

Naveena gasped, her breath catching in her throat. She was distracted.

So distracted, in fact that she didn't see or feel Reaver's hands wrapping around her throat, but his thumbs pressed on her windpipe, Naveena's eyes fluttered open. Reaver pushed, knee pressed between her legs, and the two went down in a tumble. His weight, his entire weight, was pressing down on her and she fought for air, pushing weakly at Reaver. But there was little she could do, as black was tugging on the edges of her vision so fast that it seemed unnatural.

Within a few minutes, the Queen of Albion was fully unconscious.

* * *

Naveena's eyes opened, slowly. The world around her was a blur of red and gold, spinning around and around like the web of a spider. Everything seemed to cave in on itself, twisted out of shape by a particularly vengeful god, and the Queen let out an erratic cough. Her fingers twitched, feeling momentarily useless and when she attempted to move her arms, she found, to her great dismay, that someone had bound them with chafing rope.

That someone had done the same to her legs, and she writhed, attempting to undo herself. It didn't work. Obviously. Around her, her surroundings began to become sharper, tightened to a point by her wakening. Whomever had the gall to tie her up had taken care to put her on an _extremely _comfortable four poster bed, for which she was immensely grateful, and the room she was in was anything but sparse.

A dresser had been nailed to the floor, which was strange, but she realized then that she was on a ship. As if to respond to this revelation, the ship began to rock, feeling much like a great cradle. They were on smooth waters. On the dresser was a vanity, and Naveena could make out her wide-eyed reflection in the glinting glass. Her hair was a mess, with strands sticking up everywhere, and dark bags had taken root beneath her eyes, which made the blue stand out more.

She was still garbed in the fine clothes of a Queen, and her weapons were pile the corner behind her. Which was odd. She wasn't sure why anyone would bother with the weapons. Hostages were only hostages if they were unarmed, and she was unarmed, at least until she found a way out of the ropes. Naveena tried again, finding that whoever had tied her took great care in making sure the task was thoroughly done.

So instead, she resorted to piecing together the giant, unfinished jigsaw puzzle that was her memories. She couldn't remember how she got here. Everything before now was a blur, like an image distorted by a fat glass, or the pieces within a kaleidoscope, something that, if she turned it enough times, she could hope to make sense of.

The Queen closed her eyes, feeling fear gnaw at her nerves. What had happened? Would she die? Did whomever had taken her have a grudge against royalty? And if so, was this Logan's fault? She was highly aware that many people saw her acquittal of Logan as unjust, a gross injustice against all those who'd suffered and toiled underneath his oppression. There was a part of her, too, that loathed Logan for his actions. Her teeth caught her bottom lip, and she bit, hard.

She did not want to think of her people turning against her. Such a thought ate her apart from the inside. Naveena turned over in the bed, her legs cramping. Once more, she attempted to reach out at her memories.

Someone had asked for an audience. Who? She couldn't remember. Naveena wracked her mind, prodding and thinking, and attempting to deduce. Who had needed an audience? Who was it that had tricked her?

And then it hit her. Because the word tricked brought forth only the memory, the thought, of a single man.

_Reaver._

There was only one man who would have dared to trick her. And it was the deviant. Reaver, who wore silly top hats and flirted with her. Reaver, with whom she'd betrayed her husband. Reaver, who deigned to think himself above everyone; including the Queen of Albion.

She tried fiercely, once again, to untie the ropes. It didn't work. And it was, at that moment, that the door opened and in walked the object of her anger.

"Ah, you awake, _ma belle!" _Reaver chattered, closing the door behind him with a final, or so it seemed, clang. He smelled like sea salt, a strong scent that clung to him like color. "Such a sound sleeper you are, I nearly believed you dead!"

She was so angry, so frustrated and so terrified that all she could ground out in reply was: _"You!"_

Reaver stood, placing his hat and cane upon the dresser, and then leaned against, "Yes, indeed, it is I. Reaver. Your powers of observation serve you very well, Your Majesty."

And again: _"Bastard!"_

"My, how very vulgar." Reaver yawned, watching her with glinting eyes. "And after all the trouble I went through to give you a _much-needed _vacation. I feel so unloved!" And then he outstretched his arms. "Hold me?"

Naveena glared, looking up at him with hateful eyes from her spot on the bed. Reaver was smirking, that damnable smirk, all lip and no teeth.

He continued, practically purring each and every word, "Ah yes, I forgot. You can't hold me, can you? I tied you up, with great care, I might add. No need to have those pretty wrists maimed, yes?"

The Queen seemed to regain some semblance of her vocabulary, because she now asked, "Where are you taking me?" And then, in a voice that was almost pitifully small, "And why… why are you doing this?"

Reaver was watching her with amused eyes, and his lips curled backwards, revealing pale teeth that seemed to almost glint maliciously in the light, "As I said, Your Majesty, I am simply allowing you a nice vacation."

Naveena ground her teeth, glaring, "And to accomplish this, you knocked me out, tied me up and put me on a ship?"

"Well, when you put it _that _way…" Reaver shrugged. "We, as in _you and I_, are going to a rather lovely little place known as Bloodstone."

She froze. She had heard of Bloodstone. Walter had spoken of it with a shiver and a distant glance, clamming up uncharacteristically when someone had brought it up. Jasper hadn't answered her when she asked about it, ignoring her as he hemmed her dresses, torn by horseplay in the gardens. And her mother, Sparrow, had deflected and told her not to ask silly questions.

The little that she knew of it, was that Bloodstone was a pirate town, one of the few cities that escaped the jurisdiction of the crown. Logan had always found it strange that the rest of Albion had left the city alone, as it would have easily fallen underneath the weight of Albion's austere army, Royal Guard or not. But Sparrow saw nothing in that city, and she had said as much when Logan inquired, attempting to get her to take the place.

And now she was going to see for herself the reason why Albion, and its rulers, stayed so very far away from the marina.

"Untie me." Demanded Naveena. "You have no right to keep me tied up."

Reaver found her struggles, and her demands, funny, because he let out a barking laughter, it sounded high and cruel, "But I find that having you tied up is so very _charmant."_

She wasn't entirely sure what _charmant _meant, but Naveena had the feeling that it was something very dirty, because when he said it, it made her skin crawl with invisible insects. So she replied, acid dripping from each and every syllable, "Get your mind out of the gutter."

The deviant moved towards her, his shadow falling long upon her body. He sat on the edge of the bed, and reached out to grip her face, holding it with a strength that seemed almost careless.

"Tut tut," Reaver clicked his tongue, brushing back strands of her hair languidly. "Just relax, _ma belle."_

And he leaned in and kissed her. Harsh, rough, but Naveena, for all her fury and anger, could not suppress a moan of approval. She found this puzzling, but any doubt was quelled by the fire that swallowed it whole, and Naveena felt Reaver's smirk against her lips. It was like a tattoo, mocking and angry and searing.

They parted. Looked at one another for so long it seemed like a millennia passed. Naveena wished she could read Reaver's mind, figure out what he was thinking when he knocked her out, and trussed her up like a turkey. Finally, Reaver reached over and undid her bounds, something that made her look at him with questioning eyes.

"I thought you said you enjoyed tying me up."

"I find this whole doing nothing thing so very droll." Reaver stood to his full height, took the hat and cane from the dresser and smiled. His smile did not reach his eyes, and he looked false when he turned to her, smiling. "Now, up! Come on, let us go and traipse the ship together, hm?"

Naveena stood, her ropes falling at her feet. She was wary, still, finding this whole thing so very strange and unreal, much like a nightmare that was so vivid it frightened her, chilling her to the bone. Reaver had done stranger things, though, she supposed. But she didn't let the idea that this was a scheme of his escape her. That clung to the edges of her mind like a hook, settling there stubbornly. She didn't trust Reaver, she doubted she ever would, but he had an air about him that made you want to follow him. Regardless of instinct or gut feeling.

She took her weapons with her before stepping out into the light of the ship. Just in case.

Outside, the sun beat down upon her as though it had a personal vendetta. Sea salt sprayed against her cheeks whenever she dared venture to the edge of the ship. It was a tiny galleon, manned by servants who seemed frightened of their own shadows. They bowed respectfully to her as she and Reaver passed, which meant that they obviously knew who she was. Naveena supposed they were more scared of Reaver than they were of the Queen's retribution. And she couldn't blame them.

"I'm surprised no one stopped you." She remarked, looking down at the blue-green tides below. If she squinted, she could make out her reflection in the water's surface, with Reaver standing beside her. The waters were remarkably calm.

A calm before the storm, perhaps?

"Hm?" Reaver was leaning against the edge of the ship, watching his crew.

"Stopped you from taking me, from the castle. Someone surely would've noticed I was unconscious."

Reaver chuckled, "I've surely said this before _but, _good staff is so very hard to come by."

And now Naveena chuckled. But she made a mental note to question her staff later. Such fools they were, such a fool she was, if she didn't have the capacity to hire adequate servants.

"What is Bloodstone like?" She asked, quietly. She was still watching the reflections in the water.

"Dirty, filthy. Full of ruffians and the like. Certainly no place for a _Queen," _Reaver replied, snorting. He was rolling his r's again. "Let alone myself."

"Then why are we going there?" The Queen asked, she turned away from the water to look at him, piercing him with her stare. She gripped the balcony of the ship tightly. "Doesn't seem like the kind of place for a _vacation."_

Her tone made it perfectly clear that she was suspicious.

"Questions, questions," Deflected Reaver, tilting his head to look at her. "Didn't your mother ever tell you never to ask questions?"

"She told me a lot of things." Naveena snorted, derisively. "Like to stay away from you, not to run around the castle naked, oh and not to kick chickens."

"Not to kick chickens?"

"I was a very naughty child." Naveena smirked, devilishly, her eyes crinkling. Her smirk was toothy.

"Hm," Reaver chuckled, darkly, reaching out to touch Naveena's cheek. She recoiled slightly. "You're _still naughty."_

The Queen stepped away, gripping the balcony even harder now. There was a certain hard edge to her eyes, like sharpened blades. But it made Reaver grin even more, cheeks twisting into dimples, eyes glinting like black beetles beneath the shadows of his hat.

"M-Master Reaver?" A servant, a small boy with sandy hair and round features, walked up to them. Reaver turned completely away from Naveena, looking down upon the servant haughtily.

"Yes? Please tell me you have a good reason for interrupting?" Reaver's hand touched the butt of the Dragonstomper .48, a motion which did not go unnoticed by the servant boy, as his eyes flickered down and then back up, to peer fearfully into Reaver's face.

Naveena had the unquenchable urge to smack Reaver. This boy didn't look a day over thirteen, as his voice cracked when he spoke.

"W-Well, the cook wanted to know w-what you w-wanted for lunch, s-sir." He looked down at his feet, at the dirty black shoes he wore. A small drop of sweat wandered down the edge of his face.

Reaver reiterated orders as Naveena looked back down upon the waters below. They truly were eerily calm. And Naveena supposed she liked it this way.

Her and Reaver continued walking along the ship; Reaver with his double entendre, and Naveena with her probing questions about where they were going and why, questions that Reaver would deflect. She didn't fear for her life, not yet, for she doubted Reaver would harm her.

They shared lunch together, inside, where it was cool.

The days went by like that for three days, until they heard the sound of seagulls.

* * *

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	20. The Leper's Arms

Avarice

Chapter 20: The Leper's Arms

_This chaos, this calamity,_

_This garden once was perfect,_

_Give your immortality to me,_

_I'll set you up against the stars._

_Wine Red – The Hush Sound_

* * *

"And there, you see, _ma belle_, is Bloodstone."

Naveena had seen a lot of creepy places in her lifetime. There had been the catacombs, where her mother and father lay still, sentinels to their own graves. There had been Industrial, broken and desolate. And of course there had been Shadelight, where Naveena had known nothing but darkness and the Crawler's sharp taunts.

But Bloodstone, as she saw it on the horizon, was something altogether on its own. A thick, very thick veil of fog, completely gray and impenetrable by sight, blanketed the city like a funeral pall. If she squinted, she could see the shapes of broken houses, misshapen by neglect and destruction. The _Narcissus' Reflection _boarded the docks, which was made of rotting wood that creaked and splintered beneath the feet of Naveena, Reaver and the crew. The sea was sea-green, and Naveena could make out long, suffocating reeds that twined themselves around the shoreline and pier.

A strange man ambled down the pier to greet them, his walking stick clunking against the wood with each and every step, as if punctuating them. He was very old, his pale face lined with ancient lines like the rings on a tree stump, and he had very long, elbow-length white hair that was braided in many sections. There was a long, curling silver tattoo across his cheekbones, and it looked a great deal like a hook with a jagged point.

Reaver, who was standing next to Naveena, outstretched his arms, as if greeting an old friend, "Alden! My, how decrepit you've become over the past years!"

"You know him?" Asked Naveena, blinking, almost awestruck, as the old man stopped in front of them.

"Aye," Replied Alden, the old man. "'Twas his first mate many years ago."

"The only one I didn't throw from the ship!" Reaver said, as though Alden should be grateful.

Alden chuckled, shaking his head, "The years haven't mellowed your depravity it seems. Good to see some things never change."

"I shan't ever _change,_ such a thing would be _too_ horrible! And I, dear, _decrepit_ Alden, I am a _humanitarian_. I must _of course_ put the interests of the people before _myself!_ Why, just _imagine_ what would happen to _them_ if I changed. Children _without_ work, running around _Industrial_ in their _scampish _ways, bordellos without a regular _customer_, and why, our _dear _Queen here," He touched Naveena's shoulder for emphasis. "Why, who _would dare_ help the Queen fill the royal _coffers?_ And do it so _stylishly?_ There is certainly none more fit for the job _than I!"_

Naveena scoffed, glaring at Reaver askance, "None more fit? I can think of plenty who fit better."

Alden barked out his laughter, startling Naveena because it was very loud, "Ha! You're your mother's daughter, no doubt about that! You lack her fire, though. The thing that blazed in her eyes." He was looking at Naveena very closely now. "You look like her, though. Sparrow was a beautiful woman. It seems her traits were carried on to you, and good for you too. Her scallywag of a husband, well… he wasn't pretty, and that's putting it mildly."

Naveena wanted to argue that her father was perfectly fine, but it would be a lie. Sparrow hadn't married her father for looks, or for money. She'd married the former bandit for love. Though what love, Naveena couldn't remember. Because what little she remembered of her parents and their interactions was a certain tension between them, like a rubber band stretched thin until it was about ready to spring forth.

So instead, she bitterly said, "I don't think you should insult my father." And glared at Alden carefully, daggers hidden within her eyes.

Alden raised his hands in mock defense, "I meant no offense, Your Majesty, Highty-Highness, etcetera. I speak only the truth. And, speaking of blunt honesty, what brings the Crown to foggy Bloodstone anyway?"

And now Alden was watching her very shrewdly, staring at her with cold, calculating steel-colored eyes. His stare was very disquieting, and it made Naveena shift her position. She looked at Reaver, who snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close, making her blush to the tips of her ears.

"Alden, decrepit Alden, can't a Queen have a vacation without it being watched?" Reaver was tapping the holster of his Dragonstomper, and Alden's eyes flitted noticeably to the black strap. "I mean really, you people are so very suspicious!"

Alden stopped for a moment, standing very still, and he turned to Naveena, as though looking for confirmation. He glanced at the arm around her waist, and her reddened face. And he said, very loudly,

"I s'pose you'll be wanting a room at the inn then?" It didn't seem like a question. "For you and your crew, and the Queen, Reaver?"

"Well, I don't have my little island paradise anymore now do I? Since those delightful little ruffians from Bowerstone decided to tear it down during the war?" A bit of anger passed briefly over Reaver's face. "I made sure they were properly taken care of, however, so no harm done…"

Naveena almost couldn't even believe that Reaver had owned a house in Bloodstone, much less lived in the place. It was foggy, and dreadful, and gray seemed to press in from all sides, as though it were trying to suffocate them. It even seemed heavy, like a weight pressed upon her shoulders.

Alden sighed and turned, waving them to follow. A few members of the crew followed hurriedly, carrying heavy bags of luggage behind them. For some reason, Reaver had been considerate enough to bring pairs of Naveena's clothes, though the thought of Reaver rifling through her drawers was exceptionally creepy and sent chills down her spine. She'd never liked people touching her things, or her unmentionables. But, in a way, Reaver had a right to do so. After all, she'd started it by attempting to steal _his _unmentionables first.

As they walked through the town of Bloodstone, Naveena noticed that almost all of the buildings were incredibly desolate, with broken windows and peeling paneled walls. A few signs hung from cracking holders, creaking with every push from the breeze. There was no end to the fog, and she herself couldn't even see more than five feet in front of her, so she wondered how Alden knew his way around town. Reaver had kept an arm to her waist almost possessively the entire time.

Reaver hadn't lied, however. Bloodstone was not a pretty place. Beggars were curled up next to the buildings, raising their eyes as the travelers' shadows passed over them, like long, thick prison bars. And there were the constant sounds of whores plying their trade in a backalley. It was a broken place. A lot like Industrial. And that comparison, alone, made the fact that Reaver had once lived here more believable.

They found their way to the inn, _The Leper's Arms, _in a matter of minutes. A sign creaked above the door, one with peeling blue paint, and a few ravens were perched upon the edge, watching them carefully with beady, onyx-colored eyes as they approached. Even they seemed whitewashed by the fog, because they didn't even flee when the group came close.

"The Leper's Arms," Announced Alden, taking a long white braid and pinning it behind his ear. "The jewel of Bloodstone."

Naveena wasn't sure if he meant that it was the nicest building in Bloodstone, or if it was the only place that the people within were allowed respite from whatever plagued them, but she certainly couldn't see it as a jewel of any kind. She and Reaver followed Alden in, revealing the inside to be a large room with an upstairs that led to what seemed like many rooms. It was clean within, well-kept, at least in Bloodstone's standards.

"I run the bar, now." Alden said, and he moved behind the counter, looking for something. "I usually charge rooms, but I can make an exception for the Queen and her Court." He pulled out a long, bottle-green wine tumbler.

"I…" Naveena was almost taken aback by this unexpected generosity. "Thank you, that's very kind of you."

"Yes, quite kind, but what is the catch?" Reaver said, smirking, looking at Alden with those dark eyes. Alden opened the tumbler and poured a bit into his mouth, wiping his chin when he was done.

"No catch." He moved from the counter, a set of jingling keys in his hands. They were oddly shaped, the tumblers at the edges sharp and dagger-like, though Reaver took them, looking disdainfully at Alden's uneven, yellowed nails. "Just follow me."

He led them upstairs, and each stair creaked as they stepped upon it, as though the building were exceptionally old.

"The Leper's Arms has been in my family for generations," Alden explained as he led them down a long hall. "My papa disowned me when I joined Reaver, but I showed him, the miserable bastard."

"Ah, I remember him. Boorish, screaming little man. Didn't I order you to slit his throat or something equally droll?" Reaver inquired, shrugging, as though this were nothing.

Alden laughed, he seemed to be permanently amused with Reaver's debauchery, which shocked Naveena, as she had never had the stomach for the man's dark humor or his insanity.

"Yes, and I did that task with a great amount of _glee!" _There was a dark, malicious twinkle in his eyes, and he cracked a slightly toothless grin. Naveena noticed that he had two gold-capped teeth that glinted within his mouth. It was a little gross, to her. Behind them, one of the men that carried their luggage groaned with preamble, and wiped his sweaty chin with a dirty sleeve.

They stopped in front of a red door with peeling paint. It looked so old that Naveena was half-afraid a tiny push would send the door rattling off its hinges and onto the floor. Alden handed Reaver one of the oddly-shaped keys and grinned, his teeth glinting.

"I'll be down in the bar," This time he looked at Naveena. "If you need me or anything."

When he left, ambling down the long hall they'd just walked through, Reaver opened the red door and in they went. Their room was a very sparsely decorated room, with a large threadbare bed and two windows that were pressed grey by the fog. It was clean, though. And it was a roof, which was a bonus.

The crew members dropped their luggage and left quickly, Reaver shutting the door behind them. The door hadn't even locked with a single click until the deviant crossed the room to where Naveena was standing in the middle of it, taking her cheeks in his hands.

"What are we doing here?" She asked, shakily, as Reaver tugged at the strings holding her corset together. Damnable clothes. It fell at her feet in a slumping pile of purple.

Reaver watched her with wolfish eyes, shaking off his coat. Naveena, wanting to busy her hands, began unbuttoning his vest for him.

He answered her when she began tugging at the jeweled cravat, and the vest joined her corset at the floor, "Well, _I've _an appointment to keep, and to keep this most tiresome appointment, we must head into Wraithmarsh."

The cravat fell, fluttering to the ground with a heavy clunk, "Wraithmarsh…?"

"Oh yes, all those that enter nearly never come out without losing at least limb, life or sanity along the way." Reaver jovially replied, pressing a feather-light kiss to her collarbone.

"And why did you need me?" She whispered the question, tumbling to the bed with Reaver, her hands circling behind his neck. They kissed, and something fiery roared in the pit of her stomach.

Reaver's hands wrenched up her skirts, and their eyes met.

"Now, _ma belle, _you wouldn't want me to ruin the surprise…"

* * *

**I'M SO SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG PLZ FORGIVE ME!**

**As an apology, have a funny Youtube video that's Reaver-related! (Remove the spaces!)  
**

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	21. Wraithmarsh

Avarice

Chapter 21: Wraithmarsh

_White demon, where's your selfish kiss?_

_White demon sorrow will arrange,_

_Let's not forget about the fear,_

_Black invitation to this place that cannot change?_

_While strangely holy, come for a rain._

"_A White Demon Love Song" – The Killers_

* * *

Reaver had left quite a few hours ago, citing "business reasons". Naveena of course knew better, and was slightly annoyed that he thought her so dense as not to actually _realize _what he was really doing, but she acquiesced to the idea (Not without first rolling her eyes) of not confronting him and sat alone in the bed, bundling threadbare blankets around her shoulders. It was frighteningly cold, and Naveena found herself actually yearning for her seaborne prison upon the _Narcissus' Reflection._

Eventually she gave up on trying to sleep and stood from the bed, sighing, wrapping a pale robe around her muscled form. She tied the sash and headed downstairs, each step creaking ominously, and wondered if Alden would care if she had a glass of wine without paying. Surely he wouldn't notice, right?

Unfortunately for her, Alden was still very much awake, wiping glasses with a dirty rag, humming some sort of song to himself. The tavern was empty, which seemed to be a normal occurrence, because most barkeeps sweated over how many people were within or not, drinking themselves into an early grave.

"Not too busy, huh?" She asked, timidly, clearing her throat. Alden jumped a little, looking up at her.

He cracked a grin, gold teeth glinting with the light of the lanterns, "It never is." He went from the counter, dropping both glass and rag upon the surface, and pulled a rickety chair over for her to sit on. "Couldn't sleep, could you?"

"No." Sighed Naveena, taking the seat. Alden moved back into place behind the counter. "Reaver and I… we're going to the Wraithmarsh tomorrow."

The look on Alden's face was so frightened that it chilled Naveena to the bone. His demeanor had changed completely, and his shoulders had tensed, squared, sharp with his broad shoulders. And his eyes… his eyes had become so dark they seemed almost black. He must have realized he was scaring her though, because he shuddered and began wiping the glass in his hand more vigorously.

"The Wraithmarsh," He spat, teeth grinding together as he wiped a dark stain on the glass. "Figures."

"Er…" Naveena shifted uneasily in her seat. "Is that bad?"

"It's swallowing Bloodstone, if that counts as bad." Alden wiped the stain even harder but groaned and eventually gave up.

"What?" Naveena looked up at him, blue eyes wide. Swallowing? "What do you mean _swallowing?"_

Alden placed the glass down harshly on the counter, and moved again. There was the rattling and clinking of glass against utensil, and he came back with two cups of ale, placing one in front of Naveena. She stared at it, and glanced back up at Alden, eyebrow raised.

"You're gonna need it." He said, and brought a stool around so he could sit across from her. Alden took a sip from the glass, grimacing as it crawled down his throat. Naveena took a sip as well, and could see why he'd grimaced. It tasted like spiders.

"It all starts with a tiny town, that used to be where Wraithmarsh is, now." Alden sighed, shoulders squared again. Something obviously gripped him, like icy fingers curled around his windpipe, choking. Suffocating. The air around them seemed to feel like blankets, and Naveena felt heavy beneath it. "Oakvale."

"Oakvale. Like Oakfield?" Naveena pressed.

"Hm. Oakfield was founded by a few survivors from Oakvale, you know. People that had clawed their way out. Don't know if they were trying to rebuild themselves, or if they were trying to pretend that it never happened." Alden looked her directly in the eyes, frowning, lines pressed around his ancient lips. "I can't blame them either way."

She took another taste of the spidery drink. Watching Alden carefully as the man shuddered, gripping his mug tightly with long, elegant fingers. He was missing the pinky finger on his left hand, she noticed. It was a small pale stump.

"It was a small farming community, cut off from Bowerstone by a… forest, of sorts. Or a marsh, really." He shifted on his bar stool, uncomfortable. "Known as Darkwood. It was infested with Balverines, and bandits. It's a leg of the Wraithmarsh, now." He shook his head, sighing. "Those poor sods. They never saw it coming."

"Never saw _what _coming?" She pressed, leaning forward, as though Alden were about to tell her a secret. Her fingers tightened around the glass, so tightly that it seemed it would splinter beneath the weight of her strength.

Alden chuckled darkly, looking up at her from his heavily-lidded eyes. For a second, his gaze seemed so icy and piercing that they felt like icicles about to pierce the skin, shiny stalactites in the mouth of a yawning cavern. Beneath the layers of ice, however, was something else. Buried deep within. Fear, sharp and tangible. So tangible that Naveena could almost taste his horror on the edge of her tongue, overpowering the drink.

He continued, "Mothers tell their children tales of the Wraithmarsh, and Oakvale. Cautionary tales. To prevent them from heading out, playing the hero. It doesn't stop some of them. Sometimes, the monsters that lurk within leave the corpses on the fringes, as a warning. Those tales…" Here, he shook his head. "When I was a child, they curdled my blood and haunted my nightmares. I saw some of the corpses. Some of them were my friends, and to see them there… unmoving… I dreamed I would end up a corpse someday."

"You went to the Wraithmarsh didn't you?" Naveena asked, stark, her throat a great lump. Her mouth had gone dry, and she drank the ale, though it didn't help. Alden laughed, it was a laugh without humor and raised his hand. The hand that had the stump of a finger.

"When I was a teenager, my closest friend, Will, ended up on the fringes." He looked at the hand, a frown twisting his ancient face. It was marred, Naveena noticed finally, with thin, blade-like scars. "I took my father's woodcutter ax and headed out into the Wraithmarsh. And I ran into a hag."

Naveena had heard of hags. Her mother, Sparrow, had hated them in particular. When asked about them, she had said, _"The hags say things you don't want to hear. They try to break you, tear you apart from the inside. Any secrets you have, they know. They steal them. Your fear becomes their food, their enjoyment. 'Veena, the one monster I fear, more than anything in the world, is the hag. Should you ever face one, please, you mustn't break."_

"The hag tore me apart. Sent her little minions after me. I threw down that axe, my hand streaming with blood, my face filleted like a fish, and I ran. The Wraithmarsh is a place of nightmares. A place of old, old history. And soon, Bloodstone will become a part of that old history."

Naveena tried to swallow the lump tied in her throat. It didn't work. "So what happened to Oakvale?"

"Many years ago," Alden sighed, as though resigned to something. "When Darkwood, Oakvale and the Barley Fields were still three different regions, and this place was nothing but a city in the making, the shadows came to Oakvale. The survivors, those that had fled into Bloodstone or whatever it was called back then, couldn't explain it themselves. They said that the hamlet had caught on fire, and dark, imp-like monsters came and tore it apart. Like they were looking for something. Some of them took the villagers, deep into the woods, never to be seen again."

"The village just… fell?" Naveena asked, tentative, as though stumbling upon something incredibly unpleasant. "What, there was no militia or anything?"

"It was a farming hamlet. It had fallen before, to bandits. But they had rebuilt then." He laughed, sorely. "What? Must I recite the Hero of Oakvale legend now?"

She'd heard that before. Sparrow had kept a book within the Castle library. It was small and leather-bound, with colorful pictures of Balverines and dragons, and a stalwart, blond young man carrying a glowing sword marked down as the Sword of Aeons. Her mother had whispered once that the Hero of Oakvale's blood flowed through their blood. That it was his blood that fed their Hero bloodline through the generations.

"No," Naveena yawned, the tips of her ears reddening in slight embarrassment. She ran a hand through her short red hair, tousling strands. "It was a stupid question, I guess. Er… continue."

"Darkwood began to spread." Alden shifted again on his barstool, uncomfortable. His pale brows furrowed. "Slowly, at first. A marsh grew amidst the remains of Oakvale. Hags found their homes within the ruins of the town, they fed off the pain within. And eventually, all that was left of this region was hardy Bloodstone."

"And the fog?" Inquired Naveena.

"Fog's recent." Alden said. "Your mother, when she lived here for a time, hadn't seen the fog. It came eventually, about four decades ago. Soon, Bloodstone will be nothing but a memory. A part of Wraithmarsh."

Naveena gasped, her breath catching in her throat, "That's… that's horrible!" At her words, Alden took a sip from his mug of ale. "What… what about the people within?"

"We will survive." Alden said, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than Naveena. "As we always have."

"I could send a ship, maybe," Naveena offered, her words tight, like a coiled spring. "I couldn't just leave you people here to… to be swallowed up by the Wraithmarsh and—"

Alden raised his hand, interrupting her, "Bloodstone isn't under the jurisdiction of the Crown. You have no right to send us aid. And we are too proud to accept it."

"Why isn't Bloodstone under our jurisdiction?" Naveena asked, slightly cross.

"We've always been a lawless town. No ruler except for the Pirate King. Which Reaver, technically, still is. He left us to our own devices when he joined forces with your mother during the civil war with Oren, the Mayor of Bowerstone at the time. And so far, we have survived our lack of a ruler."

"But still—" Naveena protested.

"No." And that was the end of it.

"But—" More protest.

"I said no."

The Queen of Albion sighed, as if annoyed by the lack of cooperation, but acquiesced herself to Alden's resounding no. She didn't really have a choice in the matter, but it annoyed her, regardless of the fact that she herself felt similar pride. Indeed, she too would have refused outside aid against the Darkness. It was something Albion needed to do itself.

"Thank you," Naveena remarked, finally, taking a sip from her mug. It still tasted like spiders. "For telling me about the Wraithmarsh. I doubt I would've gotten anything out of Reaver if I asked."

"Anytime, my lady," Alden smiled at her. It was a kind smile, dimpled and powerful. It reminded Naveena of her father's smile. "Your mother was a good acquaintance of mind. It was the least I could do, for her daughter."

"What was my mother like?" Naveena asked, curious. "I mean, she died when I was very young. The only thing I really remember about her was…" _Her looks, her laugh, her smile, her eyes. _It cut deep to the core, a pick at a scab that had long since healed.

"She was the most beautiful woman I've ever met," Alden replied, smiling, eyes crinkled at the edges like wrinkled parchment. "And sharp as the swords she used."

The two sat in companionable silence for a long while, until their mugs were empty. Naveena bade him good night, and, feeling the tiniest bit tipsy as she crawled into her and Reaver's bed, (It was strange, weird, to share a bed with him. Like there was something wrong with the thought) she quickly fell asleep, breathing in The Leper's Arms' must and dust.

Reaver awoke her only a few hours later, when the sun had just reach the nadir of the hills, and the foggy sky was a lighter gray than the night before.

* * *

"The Wraithmarsh is wet." Was the first thing out of Naveena's mouth when they entered the swamp. How intelligible. She would have done Jasper proud. It didn't help that Alden's tales were traipsing after her, clinging to her head like an incredibly raunchy rash.

Reaver scoffed, "How incredibly observant! Such powers of observation must do you well, Your Majesty."

"You'd be surprised." She groused, pulling her coat around her. A sudden chill moved down her spine as she slogged through the wet marsh, each step resulting in the ground swallowing the sound of her feet until she pulled them up, resulting in a wet, sloppy sound that reminded her of someone smacking their lips.

Reaver appeared to have no such trouble, moving soundlessly through the marsh like an overgrown panther, or a man returning home. He was holding something peculiar in his arms, however. A large circular disk that was made of no metal Naveena had ever seen, but it looked rusty, flecked with copper-gold. Looking at it made her stomach twist in coils.

"What is that," She asked, feeling particularly nosy. "In your arms? Is that why we're here, in this Light-forsaken place?"

Reaver looked down at the disk, as though he'd forgotten it was there, "Ah, your powers of observation continue to benefit you. Indeed, this tiresome little thing belongs to a certain odious people out in this… _place. _And so I, being the graciously gracious person that I am, am going to return it. For I certainly don't want it."

"But what _is _it?" Naveena pressed, getting closer. Her shoes yawned and the ground beneath her smacked. Reaver continued his soundless, eerie approach.

"Whoever knows?" Replied Reaver, getting annoyed. "But it certainly has no place in _my _home, Avo no! I mean _look _at this. So… brown and shapeless!"

They passed a series of black gates. It seemed like it had once been a graveyard, but every grave she saw was covered in bits of moss and dirt, a casualty of the ever-changing world around it. There was a teddy bear with its head torn off in front of one of the graves, and it seemed like it had been there for an incredibly long time. A certain wetness was beginning to cling to Naveena's cheeks.

"I hate this place." She said, eager to fill the silence gaping between the two of them. Talking made her less nervous. "It's… sad."

"Sad?" Reaver shot back, chuckling. "I find the word repugnant much more satisfactory, if I may say so myself."

"Alden told me about… this place. How it's swallowing Bloodstone."

"That fool puts a great deal of weight in old wives tales." Reaver said, angrily. "Such an uncouth man. This place is certainly not spreading."

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Naveena remembered something.

"Did you grow up in Bloodstone?"

Reaver laughed, a real laugh, high and almost cruel, "Oh, yes. I was _born_ there." His fingers clenched the disc in his hands tightly, curling into the serrated edge.

They continued along the path until they found themselves entering a wide space, with a dilapidated well in the middle of it. It was incredibly cold there, and Naveena was surprised to see both her and Reaver's breath pour out in long streams in front of them.

And then they found a hag.

* * *

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	22. Novus Passer

Avarice

Chapter 22: Novus Passer

_You only know what I want you to,_

_I know everything you don't want me to,_

_Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine,_

_Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine._

_Poison & Wine – The Civil Wars_

* * *

"_Mother?" Naveena shifted uneasily in her seat, looking up at her mother with eyes that seemed very wide and big on her childish face. Sparrow was drinking a cup of fine tea within equally fine china, the liquid within a warm, whiskey-colored brown. _

_Naveena wrinkled her nose at it, because Sparrow often forewent the use of sugar, and she, being so young and so hooked on tiny sweets and candies, could not imagine how anyone could drink something so bitter._

_Her mother looked at her, the blue eyes deep-set in her beautiful but slowly aging features were very familiar. Naveena felt almost as though she were peering into a mirror, one which showed the future and all its intrinsic complexities, and an older version of herself._

_The stare made her squirm in her seat, the cushioned chair within the music room squealing beneath her weight slightly, as the animal it had once been did once before, long ago._

_The nervousness that always followed her whenever she spoke with her mother slowly forced itself in courage, and Naveena asked, slowly, her lips forming the words with deliberate precision, "Why are you so afraid of hags?"_

_Her mother's expression changed, and the discomfort she could see in it was so palpable, so fierce that she could almost taste it. It was an expression that Naveena had never before seen in Sparrow's face, and to see it was almost distressing. _

_Seeing it seemed wrong, odd, bizarre. It was like a dress with holes, or Walter without a tankard. It was something that she had never before seen, and it frightened her._

_Naveena reached for one of the cookies on the winged-footed table between her and her mother. She bit into the cookie. When it crumbled in her mouth, it tasted like the icing Jasper put on her birthday cakes, thick, smooth and rich. The young girl watched her mother carefully._

_Sparrow peered into the whiskey-colored tea, her full lips pursed into a thin, bloodless line. After what seemed like a very long while, the fiery-haired Queen began,_

"_You must understand, Naveena," Said the Hero Queen, staring into her sugarless tea. "That I, like many people, keep a great deal of things to myself."_

_She stared at her mother, feigning calm, as though it were not alarming to discover that your mother held secrets. _

_Everyone had secrets, she supposed. There were many things she liked to keep from her mother, and her brother. Things she kept to herself and herself alone._

_She swallowed the icing that was beginning to seal her tongue to the roof of her mouth. It didn't taste that good anymore._

_Sparrow continued, after taking a long sip from her tea, a long sip that for some reason seemed too long, deliberate, "Hags, Banshees is what they're most commonly called, hags feed on your secrets, Naveena. They find everything you want to hide, everything you fear, and turn it against you."_

"_E-Everything?" Naveena's voice shook, and she tried to fold her hands in her lap, like a lady, like Jasper had taught her. Something about it alarmed her, and goosebumps pimpled her arms._

_Her mother, the Hero Queen, the Slayer of Madmen, the Conqueror of the Spire, held no such outward forms of fear, but her eyes flashed in the way they did when Sparrow was presented with something she believed she could not handle._

"_Yes," She confirmed, eyes turning skyward. "Everything. Your every fear, every secret, every lie you've ever told... it is thrown in your face. It chills you to the bone, burns your soul... hags are cruel. They do all that they can to terrorize you, to plant the seeds of doubt within and foster them..."_

_Her mother stopped for a moment, long fingers clutching the handle of the fine china tightly, so tight that Naveena almost thought the glass would shatter into several tiny pieces. There were roses decorating the cup, Naveena noticed. Big, red roses. Her mother had always adored roses, and had ordered the Castle landscapers to plant rosebushes all around the Castle. It made sense that even her finest china would be adorned with the flower._

_Naveena licked her lips, and then asked, in a small voice that seemed to squeak like a small church mouse, "But why would that hurt you?"_

_The familiar eyes turned back to her, and for some reason, they seemed incredibly blue, vibrant and weird in the framed face. They didn't seem quite as familiar anymore._

"_You do not understand," Said Sparrow, her voice punctuated, clipped. Naveena had to force her gaze away from the eyes, and instead fixed them upon the roses adorning the cup. "But someday, Naveena, someday you will."_

* * *

Her someday had come.

The first thing she noticed, the only thing that Naveena, Queen of Albion, Leader of the Revolution and Hero of Brightwall, _could _notice was the ice that had taken to the wind. She could feel it everywhere, around her, touching her, inside her. The cold took hold, its fingers brushing her cheeks and pausing at her throat. It was as though the cold were _alive._

Below, the ground squelched beneath her feet, the marsh trapping her, as though it were trying to keep her there.

Beside Naveena, Reaver was showing a certain discomfort in his face, a disquiet that reminded her very much of her mother. Did he fear hags too? She found her eyes searching the dark shape that floated by the well, and when its head turned, Naveena barely stifled the scream that leapt to her lips.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen in her years of life. The hag had long, tangled auburn hair that hid part of its face. She could see one of its eyes, a vivid gold that loved her not, and when the eye fixated itself on her, Naveena thought someone had taken a dagger and cut right through her chest to her heart.

The eye made her breathing stop, and she felt a great deal like a bird caught in a cat's crossfire. Her heart thrummed, beat quicker and quicker, and she could almost _feel _the hag's gaze as something tangible, like a spear or an arrow.

The hag wore clothes of the purest, cleanest white, the hair trapped beneath a bonnet. They were unsullied, clean, and entirely unnatural within the Wraithmarsh. The thing seemed dark, horrifying and wrong. Detached from the natural world, picked out of someone's nightmares. Alden hadn't exaggerated the fierceness of the hag.

He hadn't mentioned the feeling of meeting one. He hadn't mentioned that its gaze burned the very depths of her soul, or that it felt like the hag was attempting to strip away parts of her soul in order to lay it bare. He'd failed in mentioning that.

She wished he hadn't, because she was completely unprepared for the tangible coldness of the hag. Naveena found herself frozen, deeply instilled in a state of petrification, as though her entire body was carved from the face of a mountain, sealed into the rock, her mouth open in a silent _scream _that no one could hear.

And when it spoke, Naveena slapped her hands over her ears, because she _knew the sound, _as intrinsically as the back of her hand,

It sounded like a woman in the hands of death, writhing and screaming _and-_

_The sound was Sparrow's scream._

* * *

_Sparrow writhed in the sheets, entangled in them, sweat dotting the fiery hairline, soaking through her bedclothes. Jasper was at her bedside, and Naveena couldn't remember ever seeing an expression like that on the butler's face. It was stricken, lined with lines she didn't remember, like an old, old map._

"_J-Jasper," Her mother managed, weakly. Sparrow was gasping, feverish. Logan reached out for his sister's hand, and Naveena remembered how very cold his hands seemed. "How long...?"_

"_I'm... sorry, Your Majesty." He said. "I... don't know." Jasper was shaking slightly._

_Her father was angry in his grief, "What do you mean you don't know!" His long, dark hair shook like something alive. "How can you not know!"_

"_Lloyd, please." Her mother whispered. Her father's head jerked, his expression softened. "Don't."_

"_I..." Her father bowed his head, face coloring in shame. "Right."_

_Sparrow sat up, her beautiful, too-young face scrunching in pain before it was hidden by a veil of red curls._

"_All of you," She could still command, even from her deathbed. "Out. Except Naveena."_

_Naveena's head jerked upwards, her blue eyes wide as though she were in trouble. Logan's hands tightened in her own, curling almost painfully around her tiny hands._

"_Your Majesty-"_

"_Damn it Jasper," Sparrow swore, glaring at the butler with eyes that burned like gleaming sapphires. "Don't be a mother hen. Out!"_

_They filed out of the room, and Naveena found herself conscious of the smell within. It was sickly sweet, like smashed berry, tinged with the sourness of expiration. She found herself associating it with death._

"_M-Mother-" She started, carefully, her hands shaking as they wrapped themselves in her powder blue dress._

"_Vee," Sparrow said sweetly, reached out for Naveena's hand. Naveena grasped her mother's hand, which wasn't cold like Logan's. It was warm, very, very warm, and really sweaty. This close, Naveena realized that it was her mother that smelled like smashed berry. "Listen to me."_

"_Of course." Naveena replied quickly, clutching her mother's hands with both of her own. Sparrow smiled, a genuine, kind smile._

"_You have to be strong." Sparrow whispered, leaning in, as though she were telling an incredibly damning secret. "Very strong."_

"_Okay."_

"_Do everything Walter tells you." Her mother was sweating, eyes ringed with red. "Everything. You need to learn the sword and the gun, understand?"_

"_Okay."_

"_You are a Hero." Sparrow said, finally, and her breathing came out in staccato. And then she laid back on the bed, still holding Naveena's hand._

_And it began._

_Sparrow's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and Naveena whined as the hand clamped tightly around her own, and her mother's body began to shake all over. Naveena screamed, trying to pull back but the hand kept her there, tighter and tighter and tighter still._

_The doors slammed open, and in came Walter and Jasper._

_Naveena was crying now, the tears running down both cheeks in warm, salty threads. Her mother's entire body convulsed, arms flailing until Walter reached over and pinned the shoulders back, holding Sparrow's body in place. Naveena wracked with sobs, Jasper trying to pry open Sparrow's fingers but it was impossible, the woman would not let go._

_And then Sparrow let out a horrible, horrible scream. But it wasn't a true scream. It was different, cut off, strangely dulled by something..._

_Naveena was the first to realize it, her eyes wide open as she watched her mother's mouth fill with blood. She shook like the last leaf holding onto a branch in the midst of winter, and the entire world seemed to drown itself out. She couldn't hear Jasper's cries, or Walter's swears, didn't hear Logan or her father rush in at the last minute, couldn't feel their hands as they tried to pull her away._

_All she saw was crimson. All she heard was that scream. All she felt was her mother's slackening grip._

_Sparrow, Hero of the Spire, drowned in her own blood._

* * *

Naveena's hands were clamped over her ears, but she could still hear it. Her mother's horrible, horrible scream. The dulled sound of someone with no tongue. Beside her Reaver seemed unreal, yet unshaken by the hag's scream.

Could he not hear it? Naveena wished she couldn't.

"_SUCH DARKNESS IN YOU!" _The hag screamed in her mother's voice. _"YOU DESERVE THE DEATH YOUR COMPANION WILL GIVE YOU!"_

Naveena froze, eyes wide as she turned her head towards Reaver. He could hear it then, she realized, because he swore under his breath and looked over at Naveena.

"You..." The feeling of betrayal cracked her voice. "You... you brought me here to _kill _me."

"Nothing personal," Said Reaver, grinning wolfishly, the heart tattoo on his cheek scrunching. "You see, I had this very important appointment to keep. And, such an appointment often requires... _tithes _of sorts. You know, the occasional human sacrifice..."

Naveena shook her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe, couldn't _believe-_

The hag was speaking again. Naveena found herself with no voice.

"_AND YOU, SHADOW PUPPET. THE DARKNESS IN YOU IS SO VERY DEEP. BUT YOU REGRET, DON'T YOU? DO YOU NOT REGRET-"_

"Oh, begone you pesky thing," Reaver waved it off, though there was a certain discomfort in his face. "I'll have you know I've no desire to hear about my misdeeds. So be off with you!"

"_SHE CRIES OUT FOR YOU, REAVER," _The hag said. _"HOW DARE YOU, SHE SAYS, HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO US!"_

"What..." Naveena's voice was cracking still, like ice on a lake. "What did you do? What have you _done?"_

"Your Majesty," He said derisively. "I _do _many things but surely you've no wish-"

"_OAKVALE LIES IN RUINS BECAUSE OF YOUR ACTIONS." _The hag screamed. _"AND YOU DO REGRET, DEEP, DEEP DOWN, IN THE DEPTHS OF YOUR BLACK SOUL."_

Naveena watched Reaver's face change completely. The man who stood there was no longer Reaver, she thought, for Reaver had never once bore the expression of fear that crossed this man's face. Naveena found herself breathing heavily, asthmatically, her entire body shaking with the weight of everything around her.

"You used me." She spat, regaining herself.

"Oh?" Reaver asked. "My, I never quite remembered lying to you, _ma belle, _no I told you I had an appointment to keep. And really, think of it as sacrificing your age and beauty for a greater cause. Why, wouldn't it be just _horrid _if I allowed this lovely face to get wrinkly and old and well, _ugly?"_

"_You bastard!" _She cried. "I _loved _you!"

And she stopped, her hands flying to her mouth. No, no, no, she didn't _love _him. She _lusted. _Love was something else. Love was... was... was what she felt for Elliot! But she didn't quite...

Reaver was laughing, raucously. The hag seemed forgotten, as though content with the rift it just created between them.

"_Love?" _He laughed, tipping his top hat over his eyes. "My, such a thing to say, _ma belle." _

In one great flourish he whipped out the Dragonstomper .48 and shot the hag. Naveena watched it crumble into a dark black cloud, and her heart quickened. She found herself grasping for her weapons, and found her own pistol. There the two of them stood, both Heroes, pointing guns at one and the other.

"I... I didn't mean it." She said, quickly. Not even persuading herself.

"Who truly cares, _ma belle?" _Reaver was chuckling to himself. "Why, if you _love _me so you'd sacrifice yourself for me, no?"

"No!" Naveena yelled, angrily. She looked like a mad woman. "What... what about you, Reaver? What about that woman the hag was talking about, did she sacrifice herself for you!"

She struck a nerve. Reaver's arm wavered, his eyes widening beneath the shadows of his hat, his lips twisted into a scowl that looked like a man dying from stroke.

"You know nothing!" He yelled, viciously. Naveena felt her shoulders shake, and a chill run down her spine. "Don't you-"

"**You destroyed Oakvale!"** Naveena taunted, carefully, stepping backwards. "It's all your fault!"

Reaver shot, and the bullet caught Naveena in the arm. She watched a spray of blood splatter across the marshy floor and finally she took her chances, bolting into the fog, throwing herself into the gray mist. She was running, hand held over the gaping wound in her arm as she ran, faster and faster.

She could still hear her mother's screams, and Reaver's betrayal was a stab to the heart. She couldn't find herself to be surprised however.

"_I have to be strong." _She told herself as she ran through Light knew what. _"Like mother said."_

* * *

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	23. The Most Dangerous Game

Avarice

Chapter 23: The Most Dangerous Game

_As the telling signs of age rain down,_

_A single tear is dropping,_

_Through the valleys of an aging face,_

_That this world has forgotten_

_Rise Against – Savior_

* * *

_Thirteenth verse, same as the first,_

"_I love you."_

_Her voice is, was, like an ocean crashing against the rocks, a thousand cradles of blue-green against the crag face. He remembered the color of her eyes, too. Perilously blue, a summer's day sky, something he lost himself in daily. He loved blue eyes. Clear and jaded and blue._

_They had the same eyes. Sparrow and Naveena and **her. **He couldn't forgive them for their blue eyes, and he tried many things to get rid of them. Lucien wanted Sparrow, Reaver wanted Sparrow gone. The Shadow Court wanted a sacrifice, Reaver wanted Naveena gone. It was simple. Easy._

_He didn't care if the world imploded upon itself because of their fates._

* * *

Blood welled between her fingers, staining the expensive, rough fabric of her gloves. She'd liked these gloves, too. They'd been broken in _just so, _the leather a cracked, soft sort of texture now, lovely against her skin. It was a shame that they were now stained with her blood, a dark, dark red that brought with it a sharp, throbbing sort of pain.

Reaver had only grazed her, nicked the side of her arm in his sudden burst of madness. He hadn't been aiming quite right, but he hadn't missed either, living true to his reputation as the greatest marksman in all of Albion. Which made it especially horrible that now... now he was hunting her, assuredly. Her breath came out in sporadic clouds of gray, hitching in her throat, as if caught there by little invisible fingers.

The Wraithmarsh was not a particularly good place to run through, and considering that she had foolishly run _deeper _into it... well, it had been incredibly stupid but she needed to _get away._

She could still hear Sparrow's screams. Rough and disjointed, the scream of someone without the tongue to scream, a sound that snapped wildly at her heels like a dog, like Ace. Naveena had tried to forget, tried not to remember or think about the brutal death since her youngest years. But for the longest time, the scene of blood filling her mother's mouth was one that followed her in her nightmares. She tried so very hard, to forget about it. Some things, though, couldn't be forgotten.

Naveena bit her lip, and tasted blood. She tried to grip her arm harder, staunching the flow of blood. The pain spiked again, and she swore under her breath, quietly, like the creaking of a door rusty on its hinges.

The fog could cover her, she knew, but just how well? It was easy to see outlines, for the fog wasn't quite as bad in the Wraithmarsh itself as it was in say, Bloodstone, due to the dipping hills and dockside location. She could make out the gnarled, long-dead trees rooted in the marsh, and dilapidated homes... that was it! Naveena found herself darting towards the houses, made of thatch and peeling paint.

* * *

_He could have picked anyone for this sacrifice, he knew. Why her? Why the Queen of Albion, saviour of the world? Slayer, of Darkness?_

_Because he wanted her gone. He cared for nothing, he told himself. Because caring for nothing was easier than caring for something._

_She reminded him of **her, **the way they spoke and moved and loved and thought._

"_Because that is a romanticist's hope, to think that a monster could love." Naveena had said to him before._

_But he had loved, once._

* * *

The inside of the dilapidated house was much like the outside, in the sense that it had seen better days, centuries ago. Naveena paused in the doorway, feeling very out of place, an intruder to this forgotten world. There was a cradle to the side, layered in years upon years of dust, and a table, the chairs pulled out as though someone had sat down to dinner and never returned. A fly buzzed past her face as she entered, and her footfalls echoed in the small house.

Everything was silent, and still, and Naveena found herself ripping out drawers with one hand, grimacing with each movement. There were clothes within, and Naveena hastily picked out a nonchalant gray shirt. Oddly, it wasn't dirty, or covered in dust.

It was, as though, everything within the drawers had been siphoned off the decay around them. Naveena walked steadily to the table and set the shirt down, flattening it with her palms and hooked a finger around the edge of the slightly frayed collar.

She pulled, ripping the shirt into shreds, and finding a piece long enough and sturdy enough, tied it around her arm. While she was doing this, she saw a piece of paper on the table. It was old, and very yellow, but the writing was thick and black and legible.

_Because I could not stop for Death-_

_He kindly stopped for me-_

_The carriage held but just ourselves-_

_And Immortality_

Naveena cocked her head to the side, curious, and lifted the parchment from the table. The edge of it was ripped, as though someone had taken the last half of the poem. The writing was beautiful, she saw, a calligrapher's hand with long, looping letters and tiny script. It was weird to find something so... out of place in the gloom.

* * *

_He leaned down, touching the dots of red with long, languid fingers. It was wet. She had come this way, then. His lips twisted into a snarl, eyes glinting despite the darkness. An anger so ferocious it burned overtook him, and he smeared the dots across the marsh._

_The trail led forward, and so he went forward._

* * *

Naveena was careful to keep her footfalls silent, flinching each time the ground below her squelched in protest. She shivered in the cold, wrapping her arms around herself for a moment before taking refuge against one of the walls. She'd forgotten how dark it was getting. It was a darkness she couldn't exactly _see, _but it was one she could _feel. _The darkness here was unlike anywhere else, it was a darkness that _pierced, _a physical thing that could touch her to her innermost core. She did not like it, not one bit. It reminded the Queen all too much of the cave, and the Crawler and-

"_The sight is ours... the sight is ours..." _She shuddered, bit her lip hard, and pushed up off the wall she'd leaned against, reminding herself that she had a pursuer, a hunter.

Her bones cracked and creaked as she moved, and everything in her _protested _and yelled, and she was so tired, so sluggish, so _cold. _A sob escaped the confines of her throat, pushing open her lips, and her eyes stung with tears. She tried to swallow the sadness down, pack it in a hot coal in her belly. It didn't work.

Her sadness turned to anger, it fueled a fire in her that she almost hadn't thought was there.

"_You have to be strong."_

Why was she _running? _She needed to _fight. _She needed to make Reaver _pay. For everything. _But she needed him too, didn't she? He was useful, in a way.

But she would _make him pay._

Naveena glanced at the ground, freezing in place when she saw blood. Bloodstains. _Her blood. _She chuckled, a soft, non-chuckle, dry and cynical. Bait. She had bait. Her hands found the hammer strapped to her back, and her arm throbbed slightly as she lifted it. Reaver would pay, not with his life, but with his servitude.

How long had it been since he'd conned her into his home? How long had it been since she'd felt the intent to kill him? A few months? Four, at the most?

Naveena waited.

* * *

_He had never before been this angry. It was something that twisted, deep, deep inside of him. She knew nothing, he told himself. She knew nothing of what he had suffered at the hands of the odious Shadow Court! And he had suffered, he had suffered greatly, more than those he had sacrificed! More than **her.**_

_Reaver stopped, leaning down to check the ground. The bloodstains led inward, inside one of the dilapidated homes. Reaver laughed, a dark, horrible laugh and stalked, sauntered in. Hand pressed against the slightly open door. He pushed it open..._

_And was hit face-first by one of the largest hammers he had ever seen._

* * *

Reaver was flung backwards, his body hitting the ground with a large thud, the Dragonstomper flew from his hand, several feet into the fog. Naveena hoped it disappeared, and she hurried forward before Reaver could regain himself, and loomed over the body. A bruise was already beginning to form beneath the layer of powdered skin. His fingers twitched. Naveena stomped on them.

"_Ouch." _Chuckled Reaver, opening a single eye to look up at Naveena though a heavily-lashed slit. "Well, this certainly hasn't gone well for me now has it?" He grinned.

Naveena growled, and pivoted the foot that had Reaver's fingers pinned beneath it. There was the snapping sound of a bone being broken. Reaver took in a sharp breath, and then laughed again.

"_Enough." _Hissed Naveena, viciously.

"Oh, just get on with it, will you?" He waved the other hand nonchalantly. "Kill me and be on your merry way." He giggled, uncaring.

"I'm not killing you."

That single sentence brought about such a vicious change in Reaver's countenance that Naveena was almost frightened. His eyes hardened, his smile became something much more ferocious and wolf-like. Everything about him seemed to become something _animal, unreal. _

"Oh, how _merciful _of you!" He whispered, his words clipped. "And just what _do _you plan to do, hm? Imprison me? Use me, like your mother?"

"My mother?" Naveena asked, eyes widening. "_No, _don't you _dare _bring my mother into this!"

Reaver laughed, his face scrunched in hysterics, "Your mother was quite the chess master! Could offer someone so much and then take it all away in an instant! She offered me power in return for my help and well, she'd offered the same deal to many. A promise broken... well, broken promises aren't easily forgotten!"

"Shut up!"

"And of course, drinks are easily poisoned, and spiked!" Reaver looked up at her with a wild grin. "It's a shame assassins are so expensive. Whoever poisoned your mother threw a great deal of money away-"

Naveena reached down, throwing her hammer to the side and straddled Reaver. She raised her fist, and punched, repeated, repeated, repeated. Reaver grabbed her arms and the two struggled, Reaver's teeth glinting white in the dim light. He won, and Naveena found herself pinned beneath his weight, wrists high above her head.

Naveena was frozen in fear.

She had lost.

"Please," She said. "_Please. _I don't want to die!"

Reaver was staring into her eyes. Naveena stared back. She could feel her body shaking. There was something in those eyes that... bothered her. A sort of something that she couldn't escape. Suddenly, Reaver stood, and looked out into the fog. Naveena laid there, looking at him.

"You..." Her voice was a whisper, she could hardly believe it. "What are you doing?"

"What indeed, _ma belle." _He looked down. Naveena pinched herself, believing it to be a strange dream. "I grow oh so tired of this. Of sacrifices. Of living. But death... death is something I cannot at all comprehend."

"Find a different sacrifice." Naveena's heart was pounding. Her anger had not yet dulled. "I'll... I'll help you."

If she could see Reaver's face, she would have seen him smiling maliciously. "Oh? But you would make an excellent sacrifice, _ma belle. _A _Hero. Why, _I could wait for centuries until I had to give yet another sacrifice."

"No." Naveena glared, and stood. "I will not be used!"

Reaver turned, looking at her. "And you would sacrifice someone else so that you could live? How deliciously cruel of you!"

Naveena bit her lip again. "Sometimes... sometimes the ends justify the means."

"Indeed they do, _ma belle." _He outstretched his arms. "Indeed they do."

Naveena looked at his outstretched arms, and felt bile rise to her throat. She watched him with the expression one would give a pile of trash. "You can't fool me."

* * *

_But I already have, thought Reaver._

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**

**So... the Westboro Baptist Church is visiting my high school tomorrow...**

**Any suggestions on how to fuck with them?**


	24. Stopping For Death

Avarice

Chapter 24: Stopping For Death

_Awake without warning_

_The black of the morning_

_All shimmery jewels_

_From the voice of a fool_

_Echoes through the halls_

_Of the building he built in her place_

_Song For The Dead – Sea Wolf_

* * *

Life was like a game of chess.

The people were the pieces, the world the board, and Fate, or perhaps Theresa, were the grandmasters.

Naveena's life, in particular, especially at this moment seemed to her to be very much like a chess match. Except here, the pieces were people she knew, her fate and destiny and life was the board and the grandmaster was still, of course, Theresa.

She supposed in this analogy that she was the King. The piece that everyone protected, and strove to protect. Unfortunately, it left her vulnerable and weak, too off her game to do much. Which made Reaver the Queen. The most powerful piece in the game. She saw Walter as the Rook, straightforward as he was. Page was perhaps the Knight, unpredictable and ambivalent in her moods and thoughts and reactions. Logan was, to her at least, the Bishop. Always popping up in places you least expect.

And the Pawns...

The Pawns were her subjects, because why else would she be helping Reaver essentially _murder _someone if they were anything but?

_My life, _she tried to convince herself. _Is more important. What is one person, compared to millions?_

She scowled and drinks, and talked to Alden. If Alden suspected anything, he doesn't say it, but he does watch her with very heavy eyes. They were like weights. Naveena glared at him, and watched Reaver as he spoke to a woman with big, naïve green eyes.

The surge of jealousy that rose up in her, blossoming like a great big budding rose, occurred so rapidly and so ferociously, that Naveena found herself almost choking on it. She tried her hardest to bury it back down, packing it into a tight little ball in the pit of her stomach like the little nuisance she attempted to pretend it was.

The girl with big green eyes drank, and drank, accepting each drink that Reaver bought for her. Naveena felt annoyance now build in her. What a stupid girl, she thought, stupid and naïve and truly unintelligent. The girl was certainly no lightweight, because within the next few hours, her brown hair was mussed, her movements sloppy, and her hands were twined around Reaver's neck like two lumbering vines.

Naveena followed the two as they left, leaving a few pieces of gold on the counter for Alden to take. The door closed behind her, and the cold nipped at her cheeks. For a few floundering moments, Naveena struggled to pick out Reaver and the girl in the fog.

But she found them soon enough; two dark shapes that moved sluggish and slow through the pressing mists. The sign to The Leper's Arms creaked on its hinges, a slow almost agitating sound that set the hairs on the back of Naveena's neck on end. She followed behind them carefully, and saw Reaver look back over his shoulder, as if checking to make sure she was still there.

Perhaps he'd thought she was going to run off with the ship? Naveena stopped, but only for a moment, and then continued walking again, no that would be a stupid idea. Stupid and silly, even frivolous. No matter how many times she could or would deny it, Naveena did need Reaver. He was the only one who provided alternatives to the more philanthropic decisions in the Court, and though Naveena agreed that many of Page's and others' ideas were noble, the matter of the Darkness still remained, a looming shadow that threatened to swallow Albion whole.

She needed Reaver alive, and she needed herself alive. Albion mattered more than one person.

Naveena watched the two shadows in the distance, and felt the floodgates of her emotions cracking again. This one person had friends, family members, a life in Bloodstone. A fate in Bloodstone. Who was she to truncate someone's life in favor of her own?

She bit her lip. Right now was not a time for doubts, or emotions. She had made a decision, and she needed to go through with it.

_You must be strong._

_I am not a strong person._

They entered the Wraithmarsh, and now, the place seemed almost devoid of sound. In fact, it felt almost... _alive, _and _accepting, _as though it were welcoming someone home. Naveena tried to imagine the ground below her, the squelching marsh, having a heartbeat. It frightened her, spooked her, and she watched the land around her with the kind of alertness only a hunted animal would have.

Ahead of her, the green-eyed girl giggled obscenely. Naveena felt only pity, and a strange, choking feeling in the middle of her throat, a knot. Her hands searched for something to hold, and she gripped the handle of her pistol tightly. Naveena latched onto the little bit of comfort this action brought, and her heart began to beat wildly in her chest.

She found herself wondering _how _exactly Reaver stayed alive. The little she knew was from Walter's stories about Sparrow, as well as the rumors that circulated throughout Bowerstone and really all of Albion. People wondered often what it had taken the man to have his eternal youth. As a young girl, she had been fascinated with the idea of eternal life, and had wondered often about the rumors herself. In her girlish, naïve ways, she was blind to the true cruelties of what having eternal life meant.

And now, to _know... _to _see..._

It was by then that she realized her hands were shaking, trembling, and Naveena closed them into fists to make them stop. In the corners of her vision, she thought she saw shadows everywhere, crouching in the hidden areas of the mists, watching as she trailed the two ahead of her.

It was enough to drive her completely mad, if she would let it do so. Eventually, they came to what seemed like the opening of a cavern, except for the fact that the door barring the entrance to said cavern was completely and totally made of metal. It was a strange metal, too, and Naveena couldn't quite place her finger on the origin of it. It was tarnished, but looked like platinum, and platinum was of course a metal that did not tarnish. So the door was a paradox within itself, something strange and bizarre and _unnatural._

"_Reaver-" _Her breath came out in a stuttering gasp. There was something _evil _about this door. She could _feel it, _a tangible _air _that hung around her, thick like blood. It was powerful, horrible, a feeling not dissimilar to the Darkness within Aurora. Naveena could almost taste it on the wind, putrid, like _death._

_Because I could not stop for Death-_

_He kindly stopped for me-_

_The carriage held but just ourselves-_

_And Immortality-_

"Hm?" Reaver was amused, for Naveena was now trembling everywhere. She could _hear _the Crawler again, a dirty whisper that snaked along the edges of her ear lobe, _The Sight Is Ours, _and her body crawled as though bugs had traced pathways across the edges of her skin.

_We slowly drove, he knew no haste-_

_And I had put away-_

_My labor and my leisure too-_

_For his civility-_

"Hurry up." Naveena ground out, her teeth clenched so tight she feared they might have melded together. Her breathing was uneven, stilted, and she fixed her eyes elsewhere, in a place unseen at the moment.

"With pleasure, _ma belle."_

The green-eyed girl giggled, drunk, at Reaver's side, arms woven around him. It was then that Reaver took out the strange, cog-like object from before, and fixed it onto what seemed like a latch. Naveena steadied her feet, attempting to find some sort of foundation amidst the marsh.

_We passed the school, where children strove-_

_At recess, in the ring-_

_We passed the fields of grazing grain-_

_We passed the setting sun-_

There was a creaking sort of sound, a lot like the sound of a rusted door being opened for the first time in a very long time. It set Naveena on edge, her fingers twitching, hands limp at her sides. When the door opened, she felt something cruel wash over her, a tsunami that felt like fear or The Void. Reaver looked back at her, again, his eyes crinkled in a faux smile.

Naveena how neither of them could feel what she felt. The area made her sick, her stomach churning, debating on whether or not to regurgitate the little she had eaten.

_Or rather, he passed us-_

_The dews grew quivering and chill-_

_For only gossamer, my gown-_

_My tippet only tulle-_

They entered, and Naveena swallowed the bile that threatened to escape her lips. The air was windless, and smelled rusty, tarnished. The walls were made of the same metal as the door, and when Naveena touched it out of curiosity she _swore _it moved, scuttling away from her touch. As if it were afraid of her, her touch, her _goodness_.

"Reaver," She muttered. He gave no indication that he had heard her, but she continued, "This place... what is it?"

_We paused before a house that seemed-_

_A swelling of the ground-_

_The roof was scarcely visible-_

_The cornice but a mound-_

Their very footsteps were the only sounds in the tunnel, they echoed and reverberated off the walls. Far away, Naveena could hear the sound of scratching, a sort of _scritch scritch _that made her grasp the handle of the hammer strapped to her back. The sound, liked everything in this place, was just so _unnatural._

"The Shadow Court." Reaver told her. "A rather odious group of _people_, if you know anything about them."

"I don't." She replied. "Know them, that is."

They remained in complete silence until they reached a door. This door, however, was different from the rest. Unlike the opening, this door was made of something shiny, black, and smooth like marble. She considered for a moment that it may have been made of onyx, but that was silly. Maybe brimstone?

She took a step forward, along with Reaver, and then stopped. Her heart leaping into her throat. The green-eyed girl seem to notice something too, because she whispered something that was too slurred and warped to be anything intelligible.

This place... everything about it was _evil. _It was the kind that seeped into her veins, attempted to choke her and hold her. She could feel invisible hands creeping along the edges of her collarbone, against the veins of her throat. The Crawler was whispering, whispering in her ears again.

"_The sight is ours... the sight is ours... the sight is ours..."_

Reaver opened the door, and there was _wind _in that place. It carried screams in its wake, high, loud, the screams of men and women and children. Naveena clamped her hands over her ears, eyes widening.

She could hear her mother's scream against, clawing against the inside of her head. Naveena looked up, eyes fixated on the moving form of Reaver. Was she imagining it? All of it? For neither he nor the girl gave indication that they could hear what she was hearing. Naveena's knees felt like jelly beneath her weight, and, gritting her teeth, she had to force herself to _move._

The black door opened up to reveal a dais, dirty and black, covered with must that may have been there for centuries. Adjacent to the dais was a twin platform, adorned with gold edging and thrones. And sitting on those thrones, were three figures. They looked as though they been cut out of the night sky itself, as they seemed to be made of nothing but shadows and darkness, with large gold eyes that glowed, almost from within.

Even from this distance, Naveena could tell that the eyes had narrowed upon their approach. The figures stood, and out of the corner of her eye, Naveena saw Reaver press the cog into the hands of the girl. He must have removed it from the entrance when she wasn't looking.

"Wass..." The girl slurred, blinking dumbly up at him. "Wass this...?"

Reaver bent down, and licked the edge of the girl's jaw. The blush was appalling, and Naveena found herself looking pointedly away, forcing down whatever horrible feeling was churning in her stomach.

"A gift, _Mon charmant petit agneau sacrificiel." _He said, his voice husky, alluring. The girl swooned.

And then, one of the figures spoke.

The sound was so ghastly, so raspy, and Naveena found herself feeling as though the sound itself had turned her to stone. The voice, the voice was like nails upon a chalkboard and it made her want to box her ears.

"So, the time has come again, has it? _The King Of Thieves..."_

Reaver held the girl tightly on both arms, and regarded the figures with a bored, non-committal gaze.

He then said, "Yes, yes, let's get on with it shall we? I haven't got all day, after all."

Naveena shivered. How could he be so _cold _she wondered? So frosty to the fact that... that the very girl he was holding in his hands was about to lose her life?

_Better me than her. _She sneered inwardly, and stopped, disgusted with her own self. Now Reaver was rubbing off on her, and she knew that wasn't good.

"She holds the Dark Seal..." Rasped the figure. It turned its gaze onto Naveena now, and she could feel it as though it were a physical thing. Like a spear, or an arrow, or maybe even a finger poking about in her insides. "And _this _one, King of Thieves...? An extra sacrifice...?"

"No." Naveena snapped, angrily, before Reaver could respond. He fixed her with a wolfish grin. "I am a victim of circumstance, but not a sacrificial lamb prepared for the slaughter." She sounded a lot more confident than she actually felt, and she wasn't sure if she should be grateful for the newfound bravery.

But she wasn't.

Her courage, in the eyes of those narrowed eyes, was fizzling. Much like an improperly charged spell. Naveena stood there, tall and pole-straight, forcing her head almost arrogantly upwards.

"I see..." Rasped the Shadow Judge. Its gaze lingered on her for a moment before sliding back over to where Reaver was standing, on the other side of the dais. "Such a pitiful sacrifice you bring us... however..."

"Sacri...fice?" Slurred the girl, finally catching onto the conversation at hand. "Wassis abou' a... sacri... sacri..." She hicced. "These friend's ah yours 'Eaver...?"

"We want more..." The Shadow Judge continued. "More life to suck dry..." The two beside it nodded. Or at least, that's what they appeared to be doing. She couldn't really tell in the darkness.

Reaver's smile was noticeably fixed, and his eyes appeared wider somehow, fiercer around the edges. He had always had a certain wolfish quality to him, but the way he looked now made it almost obviously so. He waved offhandedly to Naveena, as though she were a piece of furniture to be auctioned off, or a toy to be thrown in the back of the toybox.

Naveena felt as though someone had knocked all the wind out of her.

"Well, there is always-"

"**No." **The air seemed to shake around them. "We do _**not... **_want _her."_

Reaver's posture, his fixed smile, the ever-widening eyes, all of it became truly pinched. For a moment, Naveena thought she saw a man much older than he actually was.

"She bears the... _Mark..." _It trailed. Its eyes had slid over once again to where Naveena stood.

Confused, Naveena inquired, "Mark? What Mark?"

"Of... _The Crawler..." _The Judges seemed to bristle visibly at the name, their shadowy outlines ragged, and fuzzier. "You are... _his... alone."_

"I-" _Am not. _At least, that was what she'd meant to say, but the words were caught like seeds in the base of her throt.

"You... may not believe... yourself to be _his... _but we sense... we _see _the Darkness beneath your... skin..."

Naveena found her arms unconsciously wrapping themselves around her chest, and she felt substantially smaller. An insect at the Shadow Judges' feet. Small. Pathetic.

"Well," Reaver interjected, his voice terse. "While all of this is quite nice and well and interesting, I do believe we have a deal to take care of, hm?"

The Shadow Judge narrowed its eyes at Reaver, fixing him with an almost imperceptible and terrifying glare. And then it spoke, voice darker than it had been before, "You will bring _more, _King of Thieves... when this time comes once again..."

Naveena saw a red glow out of the corner of her eyes, and turned to see that the reddish aura had surrounded the green-eyed girl. She seemed to notice it too, for she'd attempted to move her arms around, only to find that they were now sealed, glued in a way, to the Dark Seal. Naveena watched, quietly, the only disturbance in her composure being the twitching of her fingers, as life was leeched from the girl. Her once lustrous eyes became duller and less green. The brown bob her hair was cut in was becoming thinner, grayer. There were wrinkles appearing everywhere on her face, between the brows and along the eyes.

The girl began to scream. And Naveena heard it again. Sparrow, Sparrow's scream in the shell of her ears. Curdling her blood.

It happened very fast. One minute Naveena had been standing, the next she was keeling over, feeling the sting of vomit as what little she'd eaten took the chance to escape the confines of her stomach. She heard the ring of gunshot, and the thudding of the body and knew, finally, that it was done.

Naveena was not sure if she would ever be able to look at Reaver the same again.

_Since then 'tis centuries-_

_Feels shorter than the day-_

_I first surmised the horses heads-_

_Were towards eternity-_

Or herself, for the matter.

_By the Light, what have I done?_

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	25. Little Red

Avarice

Chapter 25: Little Red

_Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all_

_But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall_

_Lend me your eyes I can change what you see_

_But your soul you must keep, totally free_

_Mumford & Sons – Awake My Soul_

* * *

The area around her eyes was darker.

And her skin was... paler, somehow, as though Wraithmarsh had drained the sun from it in the past few days.

Naveena stood in front of the mirror in _The Leper's Arms, _hands braced on both sides of the sink, peering into her slightly warped reflection. The woman that stared back resembled her mother more than it resembled her, forgetting of course the fiery ringlets that Sparrow had always been so proud of. Naveena's hair was getting longer however, shaggier and wavier around the sides. Perhaps she would let it grow out, and make sure that she no longer resembled herself at all. She didn't want to look like herself.

Because herself had just done an incredibly terrible thing.

Naveena splashed her face with water, the coolness enhanced by the almost wintry air within the room. The window was, of course, frosted with fog, making it seem almost drearier and colder than it actually was. It was time for her to return home, finally. Naveena found herself almost aching for the familiarity of the castle, even the horrid workload and the stiff, uncomfortable throne. She even missed the constant nagging of Hobson.

Now _that _was a weird sentiment.

She wondered how she was going to be able to face her subjects, face Walter, Elliot and all of them now. After she'd partaken in what she had done? Naveena sighed, and dried her face and hands dry, almost vigorously, as though attempting to get rid of something she knew very well she could never get rid of.

There was a timid knock at her door, which startled her.

"Can I come in?" It was Alden, the tavern-keeper.

Naveena let out a second breathy sigh and moved to open the door. And there was Alden, holding a tray of frosted rolls and a pot of tea. The two of them moved to the single, small splinter-ridden table in the corner, growing like a mushroom in the shadows of the room. Reaver was, at the moment, recollecting his possessions from his former mansion in this place, leaving Naveena to her lonesome, which she would have appreciated had it been anyone other than Reaver doing so.

Not a single word had passed between the two of them since they'd come back from the Shadow Court. She had nothing to say, and neither did he. Naveena was still struggling with the fact that she had essentially murdered someone. The very thought of it, even now, chilled her to the bones.

Alden poured himself and her a cup of tea when they sat down. Naveena took hers with two sugars and Alden took his with four which surprised her because he did not seem like a person with a sweet tooth.

"You seem different," he said after taking a sip of tea. "After seeing the Warithmarsh."

Naveena stared into her tea, peering into her reflection, at the areas around her eyes which seemed like bruised circles.

"It… was a harrowing experience." She whispered.

"Your mother said the same thing when she returned." Alden smiled slightly, eyes vividly gray as they twinkled.

"how did you know her?"

Alden whistled, "Way back, fifty years ago, she she stayed here, in the Leper's Arms. Looking for Reaver, actually, looking to fight Lucien. Fiercest woman I'd ever met, one of the few I'd seen travel through Wraithmarsh and come out with all their screws in place." Here, he smiled. "Most beautiful woman I'd ever met, too."

Here, Alden looked away slyly, a bit of pink dusting his cheeks, "Aye... that woman was a marvel. Me and maybe every other man in Albion was envious of your Pa when they got married. He'd certainly gotten a good deal."

Naveena frowned, her father Lloyd, had always spoken of her mother before Sparrow's passing. It was after the funeral, after the eulogy in which Walter stood and spoke of Heroes and battles and places filled with violence and war, when Lloyd never spoke of Sparrow again. She'd wondered if he had blamed himself, for her death.

"He loved her because she was strong." Naveena said,in clipped tones. Her fingers clenched tightly around the chipped handle of the old, old mug. "Not because she was beautiful."

"Aye, course." Alden murmured, softly, as though treading upon careful ground. "I didn't mean to offend you, Your Majesty."

"He..." Naveena shifted uneasily in the wooden chair. It was nothing like the chairs they had in the Castle. There was no cushion, or anything like the sort. "My father... he didn't talk about her after she... passed."

"Everyone mourned her passing." Alden smiled, nodding. His smile made Naveena smile, too, an unsure, cautious smile. "For a Hero like Sparrow, to die so young..."

Naveena took a sip of the tea through pursed lips. It was very weak tea, a little watery, and nothing like the tea that Jasper made. Well, it was unfair to compare the two. The tea that Jasper made was on a level all of its own.

"Reaver said someone had tried to poison her." Naveena wasn't exactly sure why she was telling Alden this, but he seemed trustworthy. Alden had this... air about him. A sort of charismatic _goodness _that made Naveena want to trust him. "I don't exactly trust him but... the idea does bother me."

Alden looked incredibly uncomfortable, a split-second of which crossed his face and twisted his lips.

"Hmm... well, that's politics for you. People forget their humanity when trying to get what they want. They forget that there's more out there 'cept for themselves and their own ideals."

"So you think... she was poisoned?" Naveena's fingers tightened very, very tightly around the handle of the cup, her hands shaking ever so slightly. "And that that person is... still out there?"

"Vengeance is a funny thing, Your Majesty." Alden told her, taking another sip from his cup of tea. "There are a lot of people who lost their family members to your mother's decision in the Spire. And a vengeance like that of whoever poisoned your mother... well, that's something that tears a person from the inside."

"I... yes, you're right I suppose." Naveena placed the cup back down on the table with a clack, and eagerly took one of the frosted cakes from the plate in the middle. She found it incredibly hard to eat, or swallow. "But... perhaps it would be impudent to not look into this. There is a chance that their vengeance does not end with my mother. Logan and I may be next on the chopping block, if that is the case."

Alden let out a noncommittal grunt, "Yes. I don't dare argue that."

Naveena folded her hands neatly in her lap, staring down at the tea and the plate, feeling almost... empty as she did so. As though there were a giant hole right in the middle of her chest. She stood, feeling very heavy, and said to Alden,

"Thank you for the tea, and hearing me out."

"Well, you're very welcome." Alden smiled toothily at her, looking very much like a cat who'd caught the canary. "I don't imagine many people listen to the Queen of Albion's thoughts and complaints."

Naveena chuckled, an empty, hollow chuckle, "More so than you may think, Alden."

She thought of Elliot. And even Reaver. As well as Walter, and Jasper.

Naveena turned to leave the room, and as her hand touched the doorknob, she heard Alden say,

"And Your Majesty?"

She stopped, and turned to look at him. "Yes?"

"Don't let Reaver stray you from the path."

* * *

_It was one of the few times that her mother ever told her stories._

_Walter had always been the story-teller, the bringer of gallant tales of good versus evil, and the triumph of the latter and the former. The holder of an oral biography with which Naveena could use to shape her mother to her will. _

_When Sparrow told stories, they were always cautionary tales._

_Naveena always, always remembered the tale of Little Red Riding Hood most vividly._

_When Sparrow tucked her into bed, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, Naveena waited eagerly for her nightly story. She wondered what kind of story her mother would tell her. Although Naveena had hoped for Walter to be there, so she could hear how the tale of the Crucible had ended and how her mother had triumphed as the champion of that occasion, she was more excited to see what kind of creative story her mother would pull out. Her mother was infinitely more creative in the art of weaving words, while Walter was more creative in terms of plot and description._

"_Veena," Sparrow murmured, lighting the candle next to her nightstand. "Would you like to hear the story of Little Red Riding Hood and The Wolf?"_

"_Yes, mama." Naveena had replied, sleepily, shifting restlessly beneath her warm blankets._

_Sparrow sat in the chair beside Naveena's bed, and after a long moment in which Sparrow took the time to think about what to say, she began,_

"_Well, once upon a time, there was a girl who was considered the prettiest girl in all of Albion. Her mother loved her very much, and her grandmother doted over her constantly."_

"_Mama," Said Naveena, interrupting. "Do I have a grandmother?"_

_Sparrow paused, and there was a moment where she looked as though she were in physical pain._

_Tactfully, she said, "You did, once. Now don't interrupt."_

"_One day, her mother made the girl a long cloak made out of the most beautiful red fabric. When she moved, the cloak moved like water, and when she touched it, it felt as though it were made out of silk. The girl liked the cloak so much that she wore it all the time, earning herself the name of Little Red Riding Hood."_

_Naveena shifted again, as Sparrow took a breath._

"_Her mother, having made some cakes, told the girl to take a few to her grandmother, who lived deep in the forest. Little Red Riding Hood, excited at the prospect of getting to explore the forest, eagerly accepted the task. However, before she left, her mother told her not to stray from the path in the woods, because within the forest there was a vicious, bad wolf."_

"_I've never seen a wolf," Said Naveena. "What do they look like?"_

"_Like Ace," Sparrow gestured to the collie, which was lying at the foot of bed. The puppy's ears pricked when he heard his name, but he made no motion to get up. "Only with sharp, yellow teeth and ragged, horrible fur."_

"_Oh."_

"_Little Red Riding Hood set out immediately, and went through the forest. However, she did not heed her mother's words. She trailed off the path that very nearly everyone took, and went through the forest, pausing constantly to take everything in."_

_Sparrow smiled, slightly, and then, "It was then, that she met The Wolf."_

* * *

Reaver's previous mansion was the largest house in Bloodstone, of which ostentatious would be only a mild description. It looked very old, however. Some of the paint was peeling off and the plants in the garden were wilting. It had taken Naveena awhile to find the place, actually, through the ever-thickening fog, which didn't bode well for her already wrecked nerves.

Eventually, however, she did find it. Naveena opened the doors, which creaked heavily as they moved, and walked inside, feet kicking up layers upon layers of dust as she did so. Cobwebs were nestled in the dank, shadowy corners of the room, carving out homes in this long since abandoned place. Naveena eyed them warily, having never liked spiders.

She followed the footsteps in the dust, noting that Reaver had an unsurprisingly long and languid gait, and that he had also at some point recovered his cane from the ship. She found Reaver eventually in what appeared to have once been a living room, sorting through various trinkets.

"Reaver." She breathed, cautiously. Reaver didn't even look up at her, although he did say, uncaringly,

"Well, come crawling out of your hidey-hole I see." Reaver picked up what appeared to be a very expensive golden statue of an angel. "I suspected you'd be wallowing in guilt for awhile longer, _ma belle! _What a devious heart you hide so dearly, to feel nothing for the life you ended. I must say, I quite admire that."

The half-compliment, half-insult passed by her without a reaction.

"I..." She paused. "I have a kingdom to save. My life is more..." _Important. Greater. Better. _"Valued than that of a..." _Whore. Idiot. Fool. _"Of someone who..." _Deserved it. Got what was coming to them. "_Does not know the Darkness as well as I. Who would not deign to sacrifice so much to save the kingdom."

Reaver chuckled darkly, "Ah, well I take it back. You aren't nearly as devious as I had thought, which really is a shame. I was hoping we, you and _I, _could put that _evil _little mind of yours to much more pleasurable activities..."

"No." She could _feel _her heart pounding in her chest, wildly, like a bird attempting ferociously to claw its way out. "This... _affair _of ours has gone on long enough. It's ending."

Reaver placed the statuette into a box, and said, "I _was _getting bored of you, _ma belle. _I've no care for any... _entertainment _you may provide, at least not anymore." Reaver laughed, highly, "Well, it was fun while is lasted, eh?"

"That's it?" Naveena hissed, crossly. "You don't even care?"

"Should I?" Reaver was now playing with a snowglobe, shaking it and watching as the small specks of 'snow' flew around a tiny village. "_Your Majesty, _after everything we have _been through together, _for you to not realize nor remember just _who _you are dealing with! _Tu n'as pas honte!"_

Naveena did not know what to say to that. She stood there, in the dusty ex-living room, watching as Reaver placed his curios and odds and ends in various containers. He now seemed to completely ignore her, as if she were a spider on one of the various cobwebs in the house.

"I'll be on the ship." She whispered, after a short while. She moved to leave, pausing abruptly at the doorframe. "And I should have known better, Reaver, than to think you anything but what you really are."

"And what am I, _meurtrier?"_

"A monster."

And she walked out.

* * *

"_Oh no!" Whispered Naveena, looking up at her mother. "What happened next?"_

"_The Wolf approached Little Red Riding Hood, at first with the intent to swallow her up, but he didn't because of some woodcutters that lived nearby. So instead, being a sly old wolf, he spoke to her. He told her good day, asked her where she was going, and if she needed help getting there."_

"_She should have listened to her mama." Said Naveena, her big blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight._

"_Indeed. Anyway, Little Red Riding Hood, who thought the Wolf polite in his manners, thought that her mother was wrong in her assessment of the Wolf. And so, she told him that she was headed to her grandmother's house. She told him that she was to bring her grandmother the cakes in her basket._

_And the Wolf asked Little Red Riding Hood if her grandmother lived far off. Little Red Riding Hood told him that her grandmother's house was the only one in the entire wood, and that it was secluded and alone. The Wolf then came up with a cunning plan. He invited Little Red Riding Hood to a race. He would take one path, and she another, and they would see who got there first. Little Red Riding Hood, who enjoyed games, accepted."_

"_But why?" Naveena asked. "That seems dumb."_

"_Let's just say that Little Red Riding Hood was none-too-bright, shall we?"_

* * *

She couldn't shake the feeling she had, even as she sat in the room Reaver had given her for the ship. Shakily, Naveena opened a glass of wine, and not even caring to pour it in a glass, she drank straight from the long neck of the bottle. She could almost _feel _everything inside of her just beating on the inside of her skull with little hands, screaming to be let out.

_A monster? _

_She _was a monster.

Naveena took a drink again, grimacing as the liquid went down. This wine was especially dry, and seemed to crawl down the throat with the gait of several smashed spiders.

_Guilt. Anger. Sorrow. Betrayal. Hatred. _All of it was gouging pathways inside of her, carving niches in her very _being. _

Naveena wondered just how big a fool she really was. She had known, from the get-go, from the very first time she had expressed even a smidgen of interest in Reaver that this, all of this, was a very bad idea. Emphasis on the _very bad idea _part of that sentence.

What a fool she was.

Slowly, Naveena began to cry. It began with a choking sound, and the feeling of an itchy throat. And then, the tears just came, suddenly. Her mind felt fried, overloaded with everything that she had heard from not only Reaver, but Alden as well.

She cried for a very long time.

* * *

"_So the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood when their separate ways down separate paths. Unfortunately for Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf had chosen the quickest path, knowing the woods as well as the back of his hand, and he had arrived at the grandmother's home first. And so, pretending to be her granddaughter, the Wolf was allowed entrance into the home and he ate the grandmother, took her clothes, and inherited her identity."_

_Naveena gasped, eyes widening, fingers tugging the edge of her bedsheets above the bridge of her nose. Sparrow nodded, grimly._

"_Yes, the Wolf was planning to trick Little Red Riding Hood."_

"_But why?" Naveena asked, eyebrows furrowing. "Why is the Wolf so mean, mama?"_

"_Because he had been so cruel for so long, that it was in his nature, Veena. He forgot what it was like to be nice, to have friends and people that cared about him. He was an old, old wolf, who had forgotten his mama, his friends, his wife, all of which who had died so very long ago."_

"_That's awful, mama." Naveena said, frowning cutely. "I'd be nice to him!"_

_Sparrow chuckled, "Would you? Even if he had threatened to eat you up?"_

"_Everyone deserves a friend."_

"_I see." Sparrow smiled, and ran a hand through her hair, tucking curly bangs behind her ears. "Well, Little Red Riding Hood arrived at her grandmother's house, finally, and knocked on the door, twice. The Wolf, mimicking her grandmother's voice, asked who was at the door and Little Red Riding Hood, believing the Wolf to be her grandmother, said that it was her at her grandmother's door._

"_The Wolf, making his voice even softer to sound even more like her grandmother, told her to enter, and Little Red Riding Hood did. The Wolf hid himself underneath the bed sheets, and as Little Red Riding Hood approached, she gasped in surprise. 'Why grandmother,' she said. 'What big arms you have!'"_

"_Mama," Naveena pursed her lips. "Little Red Riding Hood is really stupid!"_

_Sparrow chuckled, her laughter ringing throughout the bedroom, "Indeed, Veena! I very much agree! But anyway, the Wolf answered her, 'All the better to hug you with, my dear'."_

"_And then Little Red Riding Hood said, 'Why grandmother, what big eyes you have!' And the Wolf answered her, grinning, 'All the better to see with, my dear'."_

_Naveena shook her head._

"_Finally, Little Red Riding Hood said, 'Grandmother... why... what big **teeth **you have!'"_

_Naveena leaned forward, watching her mother with unmoving eyes._

"_And The Wolf said, 'All the better to eat you up with, my dear'."_

* * *

Eventually Reaver was on the ship and they were setting sail from foggy Bloodstone once more, and headed home. Naveena had stood on the deck of the ship, with Reaver beside her, and the two of them watched as the foggy village disappeared into something indecipherable on the horizon line.

The silence between the two of them stretched on, and then she said, "I think we should talk."

Reaver regarded her with a very bored sort of look, his arched eyebrows high up on his forehead, half-hidden by perfectly styled bangs. Naveena kept her face forward, watching the tide as it pushed and pulled, listened to the almost distant sound of the seagulls.

"Whatever about, _meurtrier?" _He said, voice thick with disinterest. It almost amazed her how quickly he'd gone from having _fun _with her to having so much doldrums over her very presence.

"In the Wraithmarsh," She felt her body tense at the very mention of the name, and she had to force herself to calm down. "You mentioned something about my mother. About her being... poisoned. You know something, don't you?"

It was easier, for her, to talk about this than anything else that was festering between them.

Even Reaver seemed surprised, because his eyebrows raised even higher and he grinned, "Well, haven't you become interesting _yet again! _To think, you take rejection with such _grace, _such _apathy! _You certainly are not your mother's daughter, _meurtrier!"_

"Just answer the question." Naveena hissed, forcefully, her teeth clenched.

"All business are we now?" Reaver tutted, shaking his head, though the corners of his smile were curled almost wolfishly, exposing perfect white teeth. "Anyone with at least _half _the intelligence of someone like myself would know your mother was poisoned."

"By _who?" _Naveena gripped the railing of the ship. The seagulls were very distant now. "You know _something, _don't you?"

"Nothing!" Reaver chortled, jovially. "When there are _so many _devious little minds out there, the cutting down of a list of culprits is quite difficult, I'm afraid, Your Majesty."

Naveena glared at him, her gaze lingering for several seconds before she turned her head away, narrowing blue eyes at the equally blue sea.

Finally, she said, "I'm going to find who killed my mother." Then she looked at him, with eyes that could have cut diamonds. "And if it was _you _Reaver, so help me..."

"Well, you will have no need to worry, _meurtrier! _I had better things to do than monopolize my wealth and power by killing our dear old Hero Queen!"

"Then you shouldn't mind it when I take the time to sort through _everything _of yours. Your business files, your _personal _files..." Threatened Naveena, watching Reaver for any hint of a reaction.

Reaver shrugged, "Go ahead, Your Majesty. _I've _certainly nothing to hide."

And then he left her to watch the sea by herself.

* * *

"_And, saying these words, the wicked Wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood and ate her all up."_

* * *

**So, I feel as though I should say something about this chapter. I don't like it at _fucking _all. So if the writing is not on par with the rest of Avarice, the reason is because I didn't feel like writing this. It'll get better, though. We're finally out of the Wraithmarsh and Avarice is 2/3 of the way done.**

**Also, as you may have noticed, Reaver has stopped calling Naveena _ma belle. _Now it's _meurtrier, _the meaning of which, in French, is very ironic considering the circumstances. It is like this to portray the, at the moment, antagonistic relationship between Reaver and Naveena. And no, the relationship does not end here, in case any of you were wondering.**

**On a final note, I'd like to direct you to _very _talented artist on DeviantArt: Celestialess. She does Fable 3 artwork. More specifically, Reaver artwork.**

**Here are a few of my personal favorites of hers: (Some of these links may be a little effed, if so just search for Celestialess on google)**

**http:/ / deviantart . Com/ art /Have-A-Valentines-Reaver- 197553298?q =gallery%3Acelestialess% 2F29081628&qo =77**

**http:/ /celestialess .deviantart . com/art /Don-t-Say-No-186961660?q= gallery%3 Acelestialess%2F29081628&qo =106**

**http:/ / deviantart . com /art/Don-t-Ask-Me -To-Do-That-Again- 272738154?q =gallery%3Acelestialess%2 F9940121&qo=17**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	26. The Girl Behind The Queenly Mask

Avarice

Chapter 26: The Girl Behind The Queenly Mask

_Tomorrow I sail the world_

_Loving more than I know with blood on my hands_

_Wouldn't know, you're a devious sister_

_Guts on your blouse_

_Close your old ways_

_Sailing To Nowhere – Broken Bells_

* * *

Well, Reaver was quite right.

He really did have absolutely nothing to hide. The records that she had ordered pulled from his industries were all meticulous and well-kept, written in several different bits of handwriting, some of which may or may not have been Reaver's hand. The most recent transactions were the ones between the Crown and Reaver Industries, which could have only been transactions between Reaver and Logan, of which she had no part in.

Naveena sighed, taking a long drink from the fresh cup of coffee on her desk, which Hobson had brought only moments ago. It was bitter. Unsweetened.

Damn Hobson to the Void! At least Jasper knew how to make her coffee!

After spitting a mouthful of coffee back into the mug, Naveena leaned her head back and shifted restlessly in her plush desk chair, accidentally kicking Ace in the muzzle, as he was laying atop her feet. Still annoyed of course with the fact that she'd left him behind yet again. She mumbled an apology to her faithful canine companion, and decided to stand.

Outside, the first snow of the year was falling and sashaying in the air, trapped in natural tango. It was almost hypnotizing to watch. The children from Bowerstone were playing in the Castle gardens, throwing snowballs and building makeshift barricades. One of them pointed up at the window where she was standing, and gave an excited little wave, which she returned.

"We used to do that, remember? And you'd see your mum in the window and point and wave."

Naveena felt an arm curl around her waist and she smiled, turning her head to face Elliot who joined her in front of the window. By now, the children were crowded, trying to get a peek of the Hero Queen. Naveena noticed that Elliot had a tumbler of coffee in the other hand.

"I had the feeling Hobson wouldn't know how to make you coffee." Elliot laughed. "You've always been picky about the little things." He shook the tumbler for emphasis.

Naveena let out an exaggerated sigh of relief, splaying her hand across her forehead dramatically, "My Hero! You've saved me from the horrors of poorly brewed coffee! However will I repay you?"

Elliot leaned into her, breath tickling the nape of her neck, "Oh, I'm sure I'll think of _something."_

Naveena giggled, "That, or I will!"

She reached for the tumbler, taking it gently from Elliot's hands, and said, "Share with me?"

The two of them moved to the loveseat in her study.

It had been a week since she'd returned from Bloodstone, with Reaver in tow. Naveena was very lucky in the sense that a) she was alive and b) no one suspected where she'd been or more importantly with _whom. _Everyone in the Castle was under the impression that she had taken a Quest upon herself. Which was a half-truth, if you wanted to get technical about it. Walter, for one, made the assumption that she didn't want to be in that stuffy Castle for much longer, and made the insinuation that she should bring him along next time.

Plus, she'd been very insistent upon her investigation into her mother's death, and a great deal of the gossip she'd heard in the Castle seemed to indicate that the people believed whatever Quest she'd taken had something to do with that.

Speaking of which, Naveena had been true to her word. She'd pulled all of Reaver Industries' records, as her belief that Reaver had _something _to do with Sparrow's suspicious death won over any argument that she may just be getting back at him.

There wasn't much in the records, however, and her suspicions slowly dwindled day by day. The most suspicious thing in the records was the merging of Faraday Industries and Reaver Industries, which had actually happened quite recently, though Naveena could hardly remember any mentions of any man called Faraday. She had the feeling that maybe it was a story for another time.

Many of the transactions were between the Crown and Reaver Industries. At first Naveena had become excited with the fact that Reaver and Sparrow had dealings, feeling that maybe _yes, this _was it. Unfortunately, it was only investments for technology, ones which proved more detrimental to the Crown treasury than Reaver Industries' treasuries.

So, no motive there.

Logan was surprisingly resistant to her attempts at investigation, citing that she had more important things to be worrying about, such as the treasury, and the upcoming attacks by the Darkness. Naveena had hissed that this was important to _her, _and that she wasn't going to let it get in the way of her duties.

Which was a lie. Her schedule was so backed up that she was surprised Hobson wasn't having an ulcer.

To sum it up: She had gotten nowhere, wasted too much time, and was just beginning to feel the stress of her life.

Naveena and Elliot sat beside one another on the rich purple loveseat, two mugs of nicely brewed and sweetened coffee between them. Elliot's arm was leisurely set across her shoulders. Naveena found the feeling of being so close to Elliot, especially after all those days and moments with Reaver so be almost incredibly strange.

It made her feel guilty, feel so _wrong _so _awful _all over again.

Because, when it came down to it: She was unfaithful. A cheater. A liar, a mockery of everything she and Elliot had vowed the day they wed.

She didn't feel so good.

"Elliot... I..." He looked down at her. Big, boyish brown eyes framed with long lashes. "Can I ask you something?"

He smiled, a big, boyish smile, "Of course, love."

_Love._

Naveena swallowed the lump in her throat.

"Well it's about-" She bit her lip, let a silence fill the space between them. Elliot's smile began to fall. "_Linda."_

Elliot frowned and looked pointedly away from Naveena, out at the window frosted with ice. There were many things that remained silent between the two of them. Such as the day that Logan had forced her to make _that _choice, the choice that had decided his life and her path in life. Or the day they reunited, speaking in short whispers about what Elliot wanted, her or Linda and how he needed to make a choice because Linda wasn't too dissimilar from Naveena and Naveena didn't share.

Or during the days of the revolution's beginning. They never talked about how one day, in the days that followed, there was a chance she wouldn't return. That she would be dead.

Naveena took a long drink from her own mug of coffee, which now tasted like sludge that crawled slowly down her throat.

"What about?" Whispered Elliot, softly. "And why?" Patches of color rose furiously upon his face. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, no not exactly... It's just..." Now she turned to look out at the window, watching the snow. Ace whimpered, looking up at the two of them, sensing unease. "Do you ever feel... guilty? For leaving her?"

"No, never! You know that!" The color on his face was rising, and he whipped his head around to look at her.

"Why not?" Naveena's stomach turned ferociously, and looked to face him, eyes locking. "Why don't you feel guilty? She loved you, didn't she?"

"And I loved her!" Elliot spat, angry. "But I loved you more!"

"I would feel guilty if I left _you _for someone else!" Her stomach feel sharply, lurching. Naveena clenched her teeth, as Elliot let out an aggravated sigh. He placed his coffee mug on a table beside the loveseat, taking hers as well. She let him have it without protest.

"But you wouldn't." He said quietly, eyes lowered. "Because you're better than me. I know you."

_Do you really?_

He reached out, fingers touching the edge of her chin. He tilted her face towards him, whispering, "Listen."

She tried to turn away, her own guilt bubbling inside.

"Naveena, _listen," _She allowed him to pull her close, and Naveena found herself truly looking into his eyes. "_I love you. _Always. From the... from the very day we met."

A smile quirked at the corners of her mouth, but she suppressed it.

She remembered, of course.

Her father, who'd taken up the position of King shortly after her mother's death had held a soiree in honor of Logan's triumph during the campaign against the Trolls in Albion, in which he'd eradicated all of them.

She'd been sharing drinks with the son of a nobleman, Percy, when the boy had attempted to... ah, let's say _impugn her honor. _That was when Elliot had arrived, coming swiftly to her defense. The boys had a scuffle, causing a tremendous scene during the soiree, and in the end Naveena ended up giving Elliot her handkerchief for his bloody nose.

She thanked him more thoroughly later.

When no one was around.

"I... don't feel so good." She stood, fleeing the study, ignoring Elliot's calls. Ace trailed behind her.

Minutes later, she found herself throwing up into the nearest chamber pot, hands braced against the sides of it for purchase. She'd been like this all week, wondering if she was coming down with something.

Well, it was probably nothing.

* * *

Make-up sex was the best sex.

A crude moan escaped Naveena's lips. Elliot was on top of her, moving and rutting, grabbing at her hair and neck, trailing open-mouthed kisses along the contours of the rose tattoo that curled her back. She felt as though her insides were on fire, and their bedroom echoed with the sound of skin slapping against skin.

When it was over, however, when Elliot's head had arched back and a guttural sound had leapt from his throat and he'd collapsed atop her, snaking sweet nothings into the inside of her ear, Naveena could not help but compare the boy to Reaver.

* * *

Reaver was bored.

A both dangerous, and impossible combination, for a man who found the fun in almost anything, except that which took away his fun. He was bored with just about everything. He was bored with his various, interminable amount of lovers, as well as the servants that provided good target practice - not that he really needed any but it always did one good to keep a skill set sharp – and even with the games he played with members from both of those groups.

This sudden vicissitude was making him surly, which wasn't good for anyone within a hundred meter radius of him.

Reaver surveyed the three stacks of paper on the desk in front of him with keen eyes. He would of course delegate the work of putting those papers back to some fortunate fellow, but that could wait until later.

He was quite fascinated with the fact that Naveena had _somehow _by some improbable motion gone through all three stacks of those papers in the span of a week. Well, Reaver was almost impressed. Almost. He knew she'd gone through each and every paper because not only had she taken _great _care to mess up the order of each and every piece of paper, but she had also written little pieces of graffiti on them. Well, graffiti was a tad harsh.

But really, what had she expected when she went through his papers?

There were various notes strewn about the records, such as _'I hope you know that this is an illegal transaction.' _and _'Really, Reaver? You invested in a condom factory?' _and _'I'm really going to pretend I didn't see this. Positive this constitutes as a bribe. Nice.'_

Ah, _stupide fille. _She shouldn't have expected less.

However, one of the papers had caught his eye. He held it in one hand, a chalice of his favorite wine, _Noctem Pectus _in another. He smirked to himself, his boredom only briefly assuaged.

There was a small note, written in Naveena's miniscule, spiky writing.

Next to the record which read – _Royal Funeral – Sparrow only, ten-thousand gold pieces sent to Crown Treasury from Reaver Industries' personal treasury, to be used for funeral celebrations and/or expensive wines. Pay back soon, loves! Signed – Reaver – _was the small note.

_You didn't have to._

_Thank you._

Reaver smirked and poured another glass.

* * *

"Her Majesty, the Queen of Albion."

Naveena walked, her gait long and proud, shoulders squared as the people around her cheered and gawked. It made her happy, she supposed, to know that she still held the people's favor. That they cared for her, despite a few of the hardships that she was imposing upon them. It was only for a year, though, and she had made that quite clear, especially in the note she'd sent informing the people that the guard budget would be set down.

She sat down on the throne, and two people approached. One of them was a woman in clothing that was very... _off-putting. _Reaver would have liked her. The man was something else, dressed in overalls covered in paint, a knitted hat set upon skewered curls.

"Today you will decide on the décor of the castle." Announced Walter, and the two of them exchanged equally annoyed looks.

Naveena of course had already made her decision the moment she'd seen this on Hobson's schedule, and no amount of ranting from either one of these fools was about to change her mind.

She let them talk, for a while.

"_Celestial?" _Squawked the woman in the barely-there clothing. She was in the middle of interrupting the poor man in the overalls. _"Serene? Pretty?" _Naveena thought that she had a very annoying voice. "Do you wish to be known as a ruler or as a fool?" Now she was accosting Naveena. Great.

"_I," _She sniffed. "Am Sybil Maleficent, Your Majesty, and I can tell you that people respect what _they fear! This Castle should be a fortress of-"_

"Enough." Naveena interrupted, leaning forward. The whole Throne Room went silent. "The two of you are here to tell me that we should be wasting our _resources _and _money _on something as trivial and silly as the décor of the castle?"

She heard Walter snicker to himself. The woman's mouth opened and closed. She looked as though Naveena had kicked a dog over a fence.

"_Yes!" _Sybil Maleficent said. "This _place, _if it can even be called that, is so dull. So... so _normal! _It is an affront to good taste and... and fashion! You, as a leader, should seek to fill your subjects' hearts with dread! After all, fear is at the heart of-"

"No!" Protested the man with the overalls. "You must be an enlightened ruler who-"

"This," Naveena snorted, annoyed. "Is ridiculous. I am not wasting my resources redecorating the castle. Get out."

"But!" Both of them protested in unison.

Walter, who'd managed to prevent himself from bursting into fits of laughter, told them, "The Queen has... made her decision. You may leave."

Both of them looked sorely put out, in unison.

As the two of them left, the audience began to slowly clap, shooting each other slightly worried glances askance. Walter and Naveena also shared a look. Of amusement, of course.

"Send in Kalin and Reaver." Walter told Hobson, standing by the Queen's throne. He jumped at the chance, a rather smarmy, slimy grin spread across his fat face. Naveena crossed and uncrossed her legs, her mind wandering slowly.

Elliot was avoiding her, of course. She'd thought they had... ah, _made up _as it were, but he was taking her words very personally. Naveena herself felt terrible for dragging up things that were better remained in the past, buried beneath a heady veneer of smiles and laughs and _pretending. _

"_Your Majesty, _may I say that you are looking simply _divine _today?" Naveena glared at Reaver, who was regarding her with both a smug smile and outstretched arms. Kalin was walking behind him, her feet shuffling slightly. "Such simple beauty! Why, it is no wonder those of the – ah – _lower _castes regard you with such obsessive _reverence. _It's almost _sickening _if you ask me-"

"But I didn't." Naveena cut him off, glaring at him. Reaver's smile only widened. Some of the people in the audience snickered.

"Well, I had hoped you'd appreciate my opinion dearly! I am, as you would say, an _amoureux _of such things as beauty..."

Naveena hand-waved, inwardly displeased. This man was now repugnant to her, or at least, so she thought. There were still the stirrings of feelings within her, writhing and twisting in her stomach. She ignored them.

"Today you decide on the future of Aurora, Your Majesty." Said Walter, though he was saying it more for the people watching and listening. Naveena knew full well what this was to be about. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and knotting her fingers together, watching the two people below her with great interest. This was something she hadn't been looking forward to.

The treasury was already dangerously near the deficit. This was something that would set them back a great deal, if considered.

"Kalin will speak for her people. Reaver will dispute her cause."

"You may speak." Said Naveena, nodding.

Kalin stepped forward, her features cast in an iron mask, "I am here to seek the protection you promised. It is too long since my people have felt safe, or have known of life without suffering. We were honored to join the fight to free Albion, but now it is time that we joined your kingdom." Kalin nodded, speaking with her hands. "Do what your brother failed to do. Help us to rebuild Aurora, and protect it as you would your own land."

And now Reaver stepped forward to stand beside Kalin, and Naveena turned her hardened gaze to him. He raised the cane in the air, shoulders shrugging.

"There is nothing so _noble_ as embracing other cultures, and I for one could not be_ happier_ to count Aurora as part of Albion." He tilted his head, smirking smugly. "But surely they must _work_ for that _privilege_, and I happen to know just how to put them to good _use._" He bent at the hip, as if telling the Queen a very devious little secret.

Kalin's head snapped to glare at him, pinched eyes narrowing as she processed just what the deviant was saying.

He nodded, his smirk widening, curling wolfishly, "There is an abandoned _mine _in the Auroran desert that holds enough materials to benefit the _whole kingdom. _Let us employ Kalin and her... _people _to gather what resources there may be. _That _can be their payment!"

Kalin's whole body turned, and she approached him, staring up into Reaver's face with a ferocity that Naveena had expected of her. She stuck her finger into his face, "You are talking about forced labor!"

Reaver looked at her with an almost bored stare, and pushed Kalin's hand out of his face, "Well, let's not get bogged down in semantics... It's a fair transaction."

Kalin turned looking almost hopelessly up at Naveena, "I know you will not break your oath. You understand what we have been through!"

From her side, Walter said, nodding, "The choice is yours, Your Majesty."

Naveena didn't need a single second to decide, "I will keep my promise. Aurora will become part of Albion, and its people will be our equals in every way."

There were ecstatic cheers from the Auroran representatives that had joined the audience, and a wide, almost uncharacteristic smile broke out across Kalin's face. She was almost trembling.

Walter nodded, smiling, "The Queen has spoken."

Kalin gave her a long, low bow, "Thank you, Your Majesty! You have proven to be a woman of honor. Aurora is proud to stand by your side."

Reaver snorted, and Naveena was watching him very carefully, gauging his reaction. This was a decision that was putting them below the deficit, but she was in no position to deny Aurora something as needed as a place in the kingdom. But she wasn't going to deny that she didn't get at least a _small _amount of gratification from annoying Reaver.

"Court is dismissed." She said, rising from the throne. The people began to file out of the rooms.

That was when the gunshot rang.

* * *

**So... I'm a little late to the party, but I recently found out a new Fable game was coming out. Fable: The Journey. And boy! Was I excited.**

**And then I watched the trailer. And got a little more excited.**

**And then I decided to do a little research to find out when it was coming out.**

**It was right about then that I learned it was Kinect only.**

**I was just about ready to throw my laptop across my room. Fuck you, Molyneux. Just... fuck you.**

**...I'm probably going to get it anyway.**

**On a lighter note, I am considering doing a prequel for Sparrow, much like Modus Vivendi, cataloging her rise to power. (Thanks to ChaosMorning for sending me this particular idea!) Which depends on whether or not people would like to see one. (I'm really starting to enjoy my particular version of Sparrow. Not gonna lie.)**

**REVIEW PLZ. :-D Cause... y'know. Feedback is appreciated!**


	27. Memento Mori

**Note: Issues arose when attempting to upload this chapter. If there are any missing sentences or words, please tell me.**

**There are days when I want to punch FF net in the face.**

* * *

Avarice

Chapter 27: Memento Mori

_A golden bird that flies away_

_A candle's fickle flame_

_To think I held you yesterday_

_Your love was just a game_

_Never There - CAKE_

* * *

Naveena remembered the first time that she had ever seen someone shot.

She'd been a very nosy teenager, just wading in the lake of pubescence after Sparrow's death.

A very curious, very stupid teenager, who stuck her nose into matters that didn't concern her.

Like the public execution of a bandit leader.

It was one of the few times she watched, hidden within the battlements of Castle Bowerstone, one leg kicked out of a window, the rest of her body lying leisurely against the frame. The guards were standing in stiff regimented lines, little red dots on the edge of her vision. She looked over, curious, and watched as another guard dragged a different man to the stairs leading up to the Castle.

This man was unlike anything she had ever seen before, having never left the boundaries of Castle Bowerstone. He was bedraggled and disheveled, with long greasy hair that gleamed in the sunlight. Naveena watched, lips pursed, so very curious because this was something new and weird and oh... It took her a moment to realize just exactly what was going on.

"Steady!" The leader of the guard had yelled. The men readied their weapons. Naveena leaned a little, eager to get a closer look. The greasy-haired bandit kept his head down, his hair a veil in front of his eyes.

_"Fire!"_

Her eyes widened, there was the almost singing sound of guns going off, one after the other. The bandit didn't even flinch. He'd closed his eyes, as is resigned to his fate, and fell awkwardly to the ground in a puddle of red, the same color as the coats of the guard.

Naveena had flinched for him though, and struggled with one hand to remain on the battlements. Her heartbeat quickened, her breathing had stopped altogether. She wouldn't deny it. She was almost afraid of blood back then. It was a color and a substance that could bring back memories swiftly and without care.

The guards didn't laugh. They sternly left the body there to rot, marching away to do some other duty.

Naveena had stayed though, her entire body frozen upon the battlement frame. She watched the body, as more and more blood poured out and around it. The wind whistled around her.

"Somehow, I knew I would find you up here."

Naveena let out an audible gasp, and turned to look at Logan, who was standing almost immediately behind her. His face was stern,and angled like their father's, Lloyd.

At that time, he hadn't yet been burdened with the crown, but was expected to take it upon himself soon. Lloyd was old, and aging, and heartbroken even after the years past Sparrow's death. He wasn't going to be around much longer.

"I..." Naveena started, but then shut her mouth. She wasn't supposed to be up here, and both she and he knew it.

"This is what happens when you are King, sister." Logan explained. He was staring at the body almost casually, though he was biting the corner of his mouth. A habit he'd never quite grown out of. "Be thankful that you will never one day have to make these decisions. The decision over life and death."

He was wrong about one thing. She knew more now about life and death than even he, she suspected. She'd wavered that delicate line with unsteady feet, most certainly with Elliot and the angry mob, but most definitely with her dabbling with Reaver...

But, she'd truly faced the prospect of death in Shadelight, when the Crawler's claws were upon her, and her vision had dimmed to complete blackness.

And now, she faced life and death in a very different way.

**Bang!**

* * *

Reaver crumpled to the ground, falling in an awkward half-bow, hand gripping his side. Naveena stood frozen atop the dais that lead to the throne, face paling, draining of color.

This was exactly what she had feared.

The audience, the people screamed, and there was a flow of bodies that headed for the doors, pushing and pulling, like a tide drawn by the moon.

_"Reaver!"_ Naveena yelled, moving swiftly down the stairs, her vision almost tunneled, seeing nothing except the man kneeling in front of her. Red bloomed like a rose across the side of his white coat, standing in almost stark contrast. She rushed to his side, screaming for the guards to find the assassin, to get Kalin, who watched this all with a horrified expression, out of the way and to safety.

And then, in a flash of white and red and black, Reaver pulled the Dragonstomper .48 from its place at his thigh, raised it and pulled the trigger, sparing not even a glance behind him. There was another cacophony of screams, rising and falling within the Throne Room. Naveena didn't even look up to see what had happened and who had gotten shot. She knelt beside Reaver, chest heaving as she took each and every labored breath.

She pulled at the velvet-gloved hands pressed against his coat, revealing a fountain of blood and a wound that just would not stop bleeding. It was everywhere. The ground, her hands, Reaver's hands, the coat.

Walter ran past her, a series of red-coated pouring after him, pushing past the crowd of maddened people as they attempted to flee through the only door they could flee from.

"We need to get you to the infirmary." She said, firmly, not even sparing a glance into Reaver's face. Her hands tried to staunch the wound, to stem the flow of blood. Drops decorated the floors, speckled like stars dotted across the carpeting. She attempted to lift Reaver up into a standing position.

He was staring at the blood on his hands. His blood.

_"Reaver_!" Naveena hissed, trying to garner his attention, her voice barely audible amidst the chaos and crescendo of screams and yells and shouts. He continued to stare, lips set in a terse, almost stern line. There was a sudden shout from the hall in front of them.

Naveena tried to shake Reaver, her own hands trembling as they gripped his shoulders.

"Reaver, come on!" She reached for the hand he was staring at, and without meaning to, took it, tucking it within her own palm. This was an oddly intimate gesture, affectionate and weird, but Naveena didn't have time to dwell on it. She tried to look into Reaver's face.

Naveena was horrified by what she found there.

There was nothing. No smug grin, nor crinkled brown eyes. No wolfish smile or sassing remark. Just... nothing. A face cast in stone, apathy, and eyes which saw nothing as they stared blankly ahead.

"Reaver..." Naveena whispered timidly, frightened beyond belief. Her lower lip trembled slightly. "Reaver, please." He looked at her, no expression placed upon his face. It was, as though, seeing his own blood staining his hands had turned him somewhat, had put him into such a state of lethargy that he simply had no care for anything at this point.

She tried to lift him again, putting all her strength into it, but this time Reaver went without trouble. His blood was everywhere now. She wavered on her feet, mind flooded with thoughts of blood, of memories and feelings and thoughts and this was not something she needed to be focusing on.

Naveena hurried, moving to one of the side doors within the Throne Room, an unresponsive man hobbling slightly at her side, head bent forward as though his own life was draining out of him. She took notice of Hobson, who'd cowardly hurried into the shadows when the chaos had erupted. Her assistant, if he could be called that, ran to push open the doors for them, trailing after them as she rushed Reaver to the infirmary within the Castle.

"Your Majesty," Hobson grunted, attempting to take Reaver away from her. "Please, allow me-"

Naveena fixed Hobson with the fiercest, most soul-piercing stare she could manage, "No, Hobson." She snapped, glaring at the fat little man behind her. He was immediately cowed, head bowed respectfully, whimpering almost plaintively beneath the gaze.

Naveena tried desperately to hold onto Reaver, to support his almost deadweight. His gait, which normally was long and striding, was no inelegant and ungainly. Uneven, even.

This situation, it almost made her think of Shadelight, when she'd been forced to rely on Reaver in the desert. It was almost funny, she supposed, to think that that was only a few months ago. And yet, because of everything that had happened, it seemed like an era ago. A millennium.

She never would have thought Reaver would ever have to rely on her.

But, to be honest, she had never really expected many things. Like the fact that, when he needed to rely on her, she would help him.

After everything he'd done to her, betray her, make her feel guilty, denounce her as boring. He was cruel to everyone and everything.

There was no reason to help him.

But here she was, carrying him through the hall as his mind was sucked into something else, into some memory she had no hope of ever knowing about.

Naveena wondered if she was doing this because Reaver had, in a way, saved her life. Had he not been in the way of the shot, the bullet buried in Reaver's side would have found a place within her heart.

Her own suspicions surrounding her mother's death had been confirmed. The investigations which had before seemed so fruitless, so unimportant, were not unwarranted.

There was someone out there, someone who had watched the Court movements without fear and waited until they were over, who wanted her blood.

Who wanted Sparrow's blood.

Hobson opened the door to the infirmary.

The infirmary was a building located within the very heart of Bowerstone Castle. Sparrow was the one who had had the infirmary installed not long after her rise to power, and nearly all of the hallways within Bowerstone Castle could somehow lead to the infirmary. Naveena herself wasn't quite sure how that worked, but the infirmary had been a welcome addition to the layout of the Castle.

She was especially thankful that it was there now.

"By the _Light,_ Your Majesty, I'd heard the commotion-" The nurse, Mary, appeared from behind an off-white curtain, dull gray eyes wide with surprise. She saw the blood, and Reaver, and her face turned several shades of white. She ran to take Reaver from Naveena. "My, this wound... it's bleeding everywhere!"

Mary was a nurse who had been employed in the infirmary for as long as Naveena could remember. She had actually delivered Sparrow's children, and had thus been around for a very long time. She was a crotchety old woman with very long gray hair that she always kept up in a bun. Mary had told Logan once, when he was a child, that she had never before cut it. Naveena often wondered if Logan had made that up as a child, and if it was just hearsay.

She lead Reaver to one of the many cots within the hospital, and carefully, avoiding the wound, she began to strip him of his clothing. First the ruined coat, and then the brown waistcoat, along with its complementary jeweled cravat, and finally the long sleeved black silk shirt underneath that, which left him bare-chested.

Mary hmmed, and blushed almost slyly before remembering what she was doing, pushing down on Reaver's shoulders so that he laid belly up. The bleeding was slower now, and Mary quickly went to work on it.

Naveena turned to Hobson, having almost forgotten that he was there. Hobson was watching the scene unfolding before him with an almost hungry gaze, black beetle eyes glinting in the dim light of the infirmary.

"Dismissed, Hobson." She said, quietly. Hobson's face jerked upwards, as if actually noticing her for the first time.

"But, Your Majesty..." His cheeks seemed to puff up.

_"Go."_ Her voice was a dangerous whisper.

"I..." Hobson started to protest, but then looked away, and nodded slowly. "O-Of course, Your Majesty." He moved to leave, the door closing behind him almost a tad too loudly. Naveena turned back around to move closer to Reaver's cot. His eyes had fluttered closed, and Naveena wondered if he had fallen asleep. His strange behavior today was bothering her, and she made a note to ask him about it later.

Mary was dabbing the wound at his side with an alcohol-stained ball of cotton. The bottle of whiskey she'd used was sitting atop the table nearest to the cot, hiding amidst several bottles of medicines whose names Naveena did not recognize.

"He's going to need stitches." Said Mary, eyebrows turned down as she focused on her task.

Naveena glanced the bloodstained sheets, and replied, "I thought so."

"Good luck finding the culprit," Mary continued, frowning. She dabbed once more before soaking the ball of cotton again. "I've had half a mind to shoot this man myself."

"Haven't we all?" Naveena murmured. "But the assassin wasn't aiming for Reaver."

"No?" Mary sounded unconvinced, and she shot Naveena a quizzical look.

Naveena closed her eyes, breathing unfettered slightly, "No. They were trying to get to me."

Mary's eyes widened as she took this in. "I... Your Majesty, this is not good."

"Believe me, I know."

Mary looked down at Reaver, almost distastefully, and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear before replying, "Your Majesty... this assassin missed you by a great deal. Are you sure you were the intended target?"

"Positive, Mary." Naveena nodded, eyes opening. They shone almost eerily blue.

The doors to the infirmary opened again, causing both of them to look up and see who had entered. Walter was striding toward her, and a familiar face was behind him.

Both Walter and Ben Finn wore similar grim looks on their faces.

"Please tell me," She said to no one in particular, turning back to look at the cot. "That the man that Reaver shot was not an innocent one." Her voice was careful. Even. A double-edged sword in the guise of a tongue.

Walter shook his head, "No, Your Majesty. The man shot was the assassin. As fascinating as that might be."

"The ruddy bastard got him without even _looking."_ Ben added, watching the cot Reaver was upon with almost morbid interest.

"He's still alive," Walter explained. "Mind you. His wounds are being treated in the dungeons."

Naveena nodded, silently relieved, "We're going to need to interrogate him." She asserted, looking back at them.

"For what?" Ben piped up, taking a small step froward. "He's probably just an angry fella from Industrial. There's _a lot_ of those."

"You think this has something to do with the Hero Queen's death, don't you?" Walter inquired, watching Naveena with sad dark eyes.

"Yes. I do."

The mustachioed soldier bent his head almost respectfully, lips set in a grave line. Ben looked from Naveena to Walter and back again.

"Why? I mean he shot _Reaver."_

Naveena stared back at Reaver. His face, devoid of any expression whatsoever, was beginning to scare her.

She whispered so softly that Walter and Ben had to strain to hear her, "If Reaver had been anywhere but where he was," There was a lump growing in her throat. "I would be _dead_."

There was a long, pregnant pause in which Naveena stared at Reaver's cot, Mary attempted to appear as though she weren't eavesdropping as she pressed Reaver's wound, and Walter and Ben watched the Queen with almost equal looks of disbelief.

"So, lemme get this straight," Ben said slowly. "What you're trying to say is that_ Reaver_ saved your life."

"Without meaning to," Naveena corrected. "Give credit where it's due, Ben."

"If that's true," Walter said, moving to stand beside Naveena. "If that's what is really happening, Your Majesty, then we need to interrogate the man in the dungeons right away."

"I agree." Said Naveena. "Tomorrow, then. We need to let the... chaos of this incident dissipate. Be sure to reassure the people that it is safe to return to the Castle. This... matter will be solved soon." Her hands balled themselves into tight little fists. "I was right in my suspicions, Walter."

"Yes, you were." Walter replied gravely. He clapped a hand on her shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, one that made Naveena feel almost safe. "Your mother would be proud, Naveena."

_No. She wouldn't. Not after everything that I've seen and done. But you don't need to know that, Walter._

* * *

Mary had stitched Reaver up in no time, and had left in the middle of the evening to return to the servant's quarters within the Castle. Naveena, though she wasn't sure why, stayed in the infirmary to watch over Reaver.

Elliot went to find her, and sat in the chair beside her, grasping at her hand. Naveena found it almost weird to have both him and Reaver in the same room, and she hoped, for her sake, that Reaver didn't wake up. It really did seem as though he'd fallen asleep after that strange almost acataleptic faze he'd gone through.

She really wanted to ask about it. To know what was going through her head. Reaver had always been an enigma to her, a strange malevolent phantom she knew almost nothing about. She hated knowing that, once again, she owed him something.

Naveena wasn't exactly sure what she owed him though.

"You've been avoiding me." She told Elliot, looking pointedly away from him. Elliot's grip tightened on her hand.

"I know." He answered softly. "And I'm sorry. About everything, and about last night."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." Naveena intimated, feeling the lump in her throat grow and grow. Outside, the moon hung in the sky like a giant silver galleon. It was the full moon. The largest one she'd seen in a while. "It's my fault for bringing it up."

"No. No it's not." The two of them were making a point not to look at one another, but Elliot raised his head to glance at the still form of Reaver on the cot. "I could've lost you today. If_ he_ hadn't been in the way."

Elliot had always hated Reaver. Even when they were kids, he had disliked the man. Elliot was always such a kind boy, but he had never had any kindness for Reaver. Naveena had never had any approval for his actions as a child. But she hadn't hated him. She had a feeling it had something to do with Elliot's family, whom had clawed their way out of Industrial through hard work and dedication.

"You're never going to lose me." Naveena felt like she was lying when she said this, and her tongue seemed to swell like a rock in her mouth. "I _promise_."

She'd been saying that a lot in the past year. _I promise to do this, I promise to do that, I promise to fix everything and everyone._

The words had never seemed so empty until now.

"I'm going to bed." Elliot said, standing. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and for the first time since he'd entered the room, they looked at one another. "I love you."

"I'll see you soon. Love you."

And he left.

* * *

Another hour passed before anything truly interesting happened.

Naveena had been nodding off before she'd heard it. The stirring of a body on a bed. Her eyes had snapped awake, her attention garnered. She stood, moving to look at Reaver, hands pressing against the now clean sheets he was laying upon. It was when she was the fluttering eyelids, the frown upon his lips, that she realized he was dreaming.

The last time she'd seen him dreaming, she'd attempted to kill him.

This time, however, she had no such intent, and decided to settle with observing him. Naveena wondered what he dreamed about. Gold, perhaps? His conquests?

_Her?_

Although Naveena hadn't thought about it much, the words of the hag still bothered her. It had taunted Naveena a little bit, but had latched onto Reaver for the most part. It had mentioned a her, that Sibyl, if she remembered the incident from his bedroom a few months ago correctly. She wondered what Sibyl had meant to Reaver, for any mention of the woman infuriated him.

He was more human, Naveena decided, than she had thought.

And of course, there was Oakvale. Reaver must have lived in Oakvale, then. Years... many years ago. If his immortality had cost that Sibyl's life... it must have destroyed him, she thought.

What a sad man.

Naveena felt a new sort of feeling for this deviant. Not lust, nor hate, nor grudging respect.

She felt pity.

"I'm sorry." She apologized to no one in particular. "For inserting myself in your devious little life. I know you can't hear me, and I know you won't particularly care, but I am sorry. It's my fault you're in this mess. That you're laying here on this cot. A lot of things are my fault, though."

Reaver shifted uneasily in his fitful sleep.

"I don't think I ever wanted to be Queen." She began, feeling the tears prick at the corners of her eyes. "I don't think I ever wanted any of this. The Darkness, or even... even you, maybe. It was so selfish of me to do everything I've done with you. I mean... Elliot is such a good man. A good husband."

Reaver's hands were splayed out, twitching in their sleep.

"But I didn't want it to end." She continued. The tears were falling freely now. "I wanted you. Not for love, not for anything like that... I'm not so stupid as to think that you want me like that. I just wanted _you_ for _you_. I was so mad at you when you said I was boring. When you said it was over. But I'm so... so dumb! I was such a fool to think that you'd let it last."

She tried to leave.

But a hand clamped over her wrist, pulling her backwards onto the cot.

"Where are you going,_ meurtrier_?" Reaver opened half-lidded eyes, smirking. "How _nice_ of you to visit me when I am ill! Truly, it simply _warms _the soul!"

"You were listening to everything I was just saying, weren't you?" She asked quietly, head bent as she sat on the edge of the cot. Reaver's grip on her wrist lessened, and he brought the inside of her wrist to his lips, as if feeling her pulse.

"But of course," He said, smiling at her. "Such a_ darling_ Queen you are, Your Majesty. So_ heartbroken _over an illicit affair."

"I hate you." She responded half-heartedly, looking over at him. The tears on her face were still falling, and she had neither the energy nor the heart to stem the tide.

"Crying is so_ very_ unattractive, Your Majesty," He said, pressing a small kiss to her wrist. "You really must stop it."

She wiped at her eyes with her free hand, before giving Reaver a very icy glare, "I'm glad you're awake."

"Oh _please,"_ Reaver's eyes closed slightly. He was regarding her with an almost bored glance. "Don't insult me! It takes a lot more than an itty-bitty bullet to take down the Hero of Skill!"

"But it takes an _itty-bitty_ bit of blood to reduce you to a stone statue, I take it?" Naveena retorted.

Reaver looked almost philosophical, looking up at the ceiling of the infirmary with a wide-eyed stare, "I've never actually seen my own blood, Your Majesty. What a bewildering experience, I must say! I don't know how you – ah – _normal_ people handle it."

"That's ridiculous. Everyone's seen their own blood before."

Reaver laughed, high and haughty, "Your Majesty! I am _much_ too skilled to be hit!"

Despite herself, she laughed.

* * *

**I am simply astounded by the response I got last chapter! Thank you guys! :D**

**I should mention, as a bit of shameless self-advertisement, that I've started an Alphabet Challenge for Fable. Called Abecedarian Albion. It'd be awesome if you guys went and started reading that too. (Pretty please? Cherry on top?)**

**Feedback is appreciated, as always. (As is critique. I find myself not liking this chapter all that much as well.)**


	28. A Fly In A Web

Avarice

Chapter 28: A Fly In A Web

_I'll comfort everyone when the homeless sirens rest_

_When the long time had evened out_

_When we'd reach the end of spring_

_And her covered eyes pressed close to mine_

_We would clip children's wings_

_Black Dress – O'Death_

* * *

Naveena was, as usual, unable to sleep.

Insomnia had once again taken hold of her and refused to let go, icy fingers which gripped her mind and wouldn't allow it a moment's rest. She had stayed in that room with Reaver for a longer time than she had meant to, informing him of the circumstances that had led up to the point where he awoke in the infirmary.

Reaver had been slightly peevish when she informed him that no, he hadn't killed the assassin. He had shot him, but the shot was not fatal.

He proceeded to call dibs on the life of the assassin.

When she'd returned to her and Elliot's room, she found her husband curled into the bed like a child, lips slightly parted as he slept. She crawled into bed beside him, tucking herself into his body, hoping that he hadn't been waiting for her. She would feel terrible if he had been. There was nothing worse than waiting for someone who never came on time.

Naveena had laid in bed for what seemed like an eternity, waiting as seconds, minutes and hours passed by, before realizing that she was never going to get to sleep and proceeding to walk the halls of Bowerstone Castle like a ghost.

She'd peered into the infirmary while she was up, realizing, with only the slightest bit of disappointment, that Reaver had at some point left. He wasn't supposed to leave, if she remembered Mary's words correctly, but Naveena doubted that he even really cared.

He seemed the type to ignore doctor's orders.

The thought made her giggle, but she stopped immediately, forcing down the almost disgustingly girly feeling of giddiness.

Reaver had even made the cot, she noticed, and did it surprisingly well. It almost looked as though no one had slept in it at all earlier that day. He'd left nothing behind to indicate he'd even been anywhere near the infirmary.

She left when she realized she'd been standing there for longer than was necessary. Right now, she wasn't sure where she really stood with Reaver, in the strange little relationship they'd had. Have, really. There was more to a relationship than the physical, as arousing and alluring the physical may have been. Naveena wasn't sure how she would even describe the relationship in question.

Besides being an affair.

That thought made her morose, and put her into a fouler mood than she was in before.

Naveena continued to roam the hallways, pausing every now and then to survey portraits and tapestries. There were several portraits of her family as the years passed. Her mother was absent, clearly, in nearly all of them, and it almost scared Naveena to really notice the deterioration in all of their faces.

It was when she passed by the War Room, that she heard the faintest sound. It was a clacking sound, soft and faint within the castle walls, almost like the sound of wine glasses being pressed against tables. Naveena noticed that the door was open too, a small outpouring of light filling the hall dimly.

Ah, so she wasn't the only one unable to sleep tonight.

Naveena opened the door softly, which made it creak on its hinges, and peered into the War Room to see just who else had succumbed to a nightly wanderlust.

It was Logan.

Her brother sat at a chessboard, his back turned to her so she could only see a head of familiar jet-black hair, arms crossed as he peered down at the board. Logan had always loved chess, along with reading, and sure enough, there was a copy of Leviathan and Avo Is Dead on a table beside him. The books however, appeared untouched, as though Logan had forgotten about them.

"Well," She announced, walking towards the table. Logan's shoulders squared slightly, as though tensed to flee. "Looks like I'm not the only one who couldn't fall asleep after today."

"Ah, sister." Logan replied, his head turned to acknowledge her. His state of sleep appeared a great deal worse than her own, if the circles that faded beneath his eyes were any indication. Naveena took a seat across from him at the chessboard, taking slight notice of the pickle that the white pawns had gotten themselves into.

"I want to play," She said, and Logan painstakingly put the pieces back into place while she continued, "I suppose you've heard about the situation going on, then? With the assassin?"

"Yes. I apologize for not coming to see you, sister but I-"

"Was otherwise indisposed?" Naveena finished for him, and then tutted, "Logan, you don't have to hide in the Castle. You _certainly _don't have to lock yourself up in here again."

"Hm." Logan hummed slightly, finished with his movements of the pieces. "I prefer it this way."

Naveena laughed slightly, "You've never exactly been a very social person, I guess. You go first."

Logan took a long moment, calculating the first move. The first move in a chess match is very important, as it was often what decided the entire game. Though Naveena suspected that Logan was more or less also deciding on what to say next. Her brother, as long as she had known him, had always been a very antisocial young man. Well, antisocial wasn't exactly accurate. He just lacked charisma, even perhaps lacked the ability to really be outgoing, or even likable.

He was acerbic, but his own abrasiveness hid something kinder, gentler. Naveena had always thought that, of the two of them, him and her, Logan had inherited Sparrow's personality far better than Naveena had. The two had the same kind of bullheadedness that had made her and her father shake their heads.

Logan moved one of his black pawns two spaces forward, and said, softly, "I suppose it would be unkind to say that I am glad Reaver got what was coming to him?"

Naveena pushed her own pawn two spaces forward, to meet Logan's directly, and frowned.

"If he hadn't been there, Logan…"

"You would be dead? I find it hard to believe," Logan pushed his knight upwards in a L-shape, capturing her pawn. Naveena let out a small groan. "That any citizen of Albion would willingly shoot the very Queen who saved them from tyranny in lieu of the head of Industry."

"I was getting close to finding out who killed_ our_ mother." Naveena emphasized, as though Logan had _forgotten. _"Whoever hired that man did not want the truth known." She moved her rook forward, capturing Logan's knight.

"Sister," This time, Logan lifted his eyes to look at her. They were weighted, heavy dark eyes. "Is it really worth all this effort to dredge up the past? The Hero Queen is dead. Let it rest."

"They could come after us next, Logan. Me, you, even Elliot. Anyone with any semblance of importance to us." Naveena said, watching as Logan moved his other knight forward, jumping over one of the pawns. "It's wise to nip this in the bud before the matter gets worse."

"I can't tell you what you may or may not do, anymore," Logan murmured, folding his hands in front of him. He was now watching the chessboard with his full interest. "But I won't let you do this without listening to my thoughts, first."

"Sparrow was our mother. Yours and mine." Naveena whispered back to him, her heart breaking slightly at her older brother's disapproval. She moved her queen, settling it into a position she thought would be useful later on. "I wouldn't do this without hearing your opinion first, Logan."

"And I'm glad for that, truly," Logan replied, his frown growing slightly. "But I have a feeling it won't change your mind a single bit, sister."

"You're right. It won't." She watched the chessboard carefully, and then grinned. In an entirely uncharacteristic motion, she flicked the tip of her nose. "And Logan?"

Logan didn't reply. He saw.

"Checkmate."

* * *

The wine was old, and dry, and aged just to perfection.

Reaver didn't touch, just watched it and the way the light from the fireplace in his manor played on the glass and the liquid, watching pooled shadows with the kind of interest one usually gave more interesting endeavors.

He had awoken, once again, from his daily nightmares. However, he had awoken in an empty bed, his bedmate, a young guard that had set about patrolling the Millfields, having vacated it sometime in the middle of the night. Which was a shame. Reaver was so incredibly bored at the moment. The lad could have provided some semblance of entertainment, had he been there, but alas.

Well, one couldn't have everything, he supposed. Not even him, as worthy of everything as he was.

Reaver watched the shadows, and the fire, and unwillingly, his thoughts were pulled to Albion's Queen.

He had no _feeling _for her, Avo _no. _He was Reaver, a man uncaring of the silly emotion known as _affection. _And he wasn't so pedestrian as to feel that for anybody, certainly not the Queen of Albion.

But my, she certainly had felt a sort of affection for him, if that little speech she'd given in the infirmary was an indication.

Reaver turned over in his mind the various ways he could use this for his own profit. Several thoughts and ideas sprung almost immediately to mind, but he found no real use for any of them.

Reaver wouldn't deny that there wasn't any sort of thrill that came from stringing some poor sap along before dumping them in the nearest alley – because there was a lot of thrill that came with that – but he just couldn't find a need to string her along.

She wasn't stupid, not like many of the people that Reaver had used and discarded when his needs were met. Naveena was a woman who could easily deduce easily. She had a certain arrogance that could be manipulated, but Reaver saw no ways to use her arrogance to his advantage.

The need for a sacrifice had easily passed, so there was nothing for him to use there, either.

He certainly had leverage over her. Blackmail was such a lovely thing, and gossip in Bowerstone, especially among the higher echelons, could spread faster than wildfire. Reaver propped his chin on one hand, leisurely relaxed in one of the plush armchairs of his quiet abode.

Reaver quite liked schemes. It was the scheming part that required too much _effort. _He liked to think he was clever, and he was, but his cleverness was often quite wasted. Thought bored him.

That was the crux of his issues right now: He was just _bored._

Shooting didn't excite him, nor did drinking nor smoking nor even the more carnal pleasures of life. He needed something _interesting _to happen.

He had lived so very long, but never before had he been so utterly bored.

This whole _assassination _debacle was a tad interesting. Even he knew nothing of Sparrow's murder, though he had suspected that her death had been a little less than natural. The mystery of the whole thing was astounding within itself.

Reaver finally took a drink from the lone glass on the stand beside him, basking in the dryness. Outside, the sun was just beginning to rise, and the sky was painted pink on the edges with pre-dawn light.

He would have to return to Bowerstone Castle soon, for the interrogation of that would-be assassin.

Reaver bathed, ate and dressed within the hour, snapping at one of his servants to get the carriage ready. The ride to Bowerstone was long, and tiresome, and Reaver spent most of it staring out the window at the landscape as it rolled casually by. The driver of the carriage spent a great deal of time shooting Reaver glances, as if trying to discern the industrialist's particular mood.

How annoying.

Bowerstone Castle loomed into view, and just as slowly as it did, it had begun to rain. Reaver glared at the sky, his mood dampening. The Castle looked like a watercolor in the rain, its stony presence even greyer, somehow.

When the carriage rolled to a stop, Reaver waited almost impatiently for the stout driver to open the door for him, and stepped out, narrowly avoiding a mud puddle as he did so. His boots were such a pain to polish.

Well, it was a pain to get others to polish them for him, if he were being more accurate.

Guards saluted the bon-vivant as he passed, and Reaver regarded them haughtily before asking where the Queen herself was.

"In the War Room, Master Reaver," Said the guard, a rather panicky young fellow whose hat was unevenly placed atop his head. "I believe she's been waitin' for you."

"Well, thank you," Reaver spoke, and with a single raised hand added, "Tatty-Bye!"

The boy's running was loud and heavy, and it made him chuckle. Really, did no one these days know the importance of an elegant, soft gait?

Reaver opened the door room, and entered, immediately finding three familiar faces and a fourth whose face he had seen in only the tiniest of glimpses. Naveena, Ben Finn, Walter and a young man who could have only been the assassin.

He had been tied to a chair with pieces of chain, and was clearly struggling to find a way out of the predicament, testing the strength of his binds with thin, gangly arms that had no hope of _breaking _the chains with sheer strength. The assassin didn't look a day over fifteen. His hair was a shock of red, and he had wild brown eyes that snapped everywhere, and stared at him.

Reaver got the unpleasant feeling that this boy was like a wild animal, untrained and dangerous, viable to snap at the oddest things. The boy's stare was piercing, as if he saw straight through you and not at you.

"Well, I'm so very happy you waited for me, Your Majesty," He disclosed offhandedly, smiling widely at the Queen. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to this little _laughingstock _myself."

Naveena smiled slightly at that, almost slyly, and Reaver took in the fact that she looked a tad unwell at the moment. Peaked, a little off-color, as though she were queasy.

"Indeed. Walter and Ben, here," She gestured to the two, who were watching Reaver with openly hostile looks. "Wanted to start right away. But I insisted. It was _you _who took the bullet after all."

"Shame it didn't kill you!" Screeched the assassin, bucking forward in his spot. "Wanted to take two birds out with—"

"Oh _shut up." _Snapped Walter; the assassin's head swiveled to regard the old man.

"_You shut up old man!" _He moaned, fingers clenching and unclenching, best they could as they were pinned to the armrests. "You can follow your bloody leader s_traight to her grave!"_

"Walter, Ben," Naveena said, suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her, and the assassin began mumbling beneath his breath. "Can you leave us? I'd like to interrogate the assassin by myself, if you will."

"What?" Ben protested, making a face. "What about Reaver? Why doesn't he have to leave?"

"The punishment for the attempted assassination of the ruler of Albion is death. Reaver has agreed to dole out that punishment for me." She nodded to Reaver, her blue eyes dry and defiant. "He stays."

Ben opened his mouth to say something else, but Walter cut him off before he could, "Let's go, Ben."

Naveena and Reaver waited patiently for the two of them to leave, standing stock still until the door had closed behind them. The assassin's eyes slid up almost vapidly, watching the Queen raptly as she slid out a dagger from beneath folds of clothes. Reaver's eyes lit up as she held it above her head, and slammed the blade into the wooden armrest with a solid _thunk, _right between the assassin's fingers. His fingers twitched irritably.

"Who are you?" She questioned. When the assassin didn't immediately answer, she hissed, "Start talking. Now."

The assassin's gaze was sharp, like a tack, watching Naveena's every movement.

"If you value your precious job, I suggest you start right this moment," Reaver interjected, his voice tinged with laughter. "I fear our dear Queen is – ah – in a very _foul _mood. As am I. We've no time for silly games."

"No name!" The assassin said smilingly. "No name whatso_ever!" _

"Don't. Lie. To. _Me." _Naveena grated out between gnashed teeth. The assassin, No Name, leaned his face almost uncomfortably close to hers.

"No Name speaks no lies, madam!" He stuck his tongue out at her, wrists braced against the confines of his binds, fingers grasping for something that wasn't there. "No Name has no name. Never given a name. Mister gave me no name."

Naveena's eyes widened, and her grip tightened on the dagger hilt, "Mister? Who? Who hired you?"

"Hired?" No Name looked taken aback, jaw dropping almost comically. "Mister feed me! Clothe me! Gave me a home! Mister didn't hire me!"

"What is his name?" She reached out, grasping the boy by the neck. "His name!"

Reaver watched this commotion with an uncaring glance, his fingers aching for the pistol strapped to his thigh.

"You know him!" Said No Name. "You know him! You talked to him! Mister hates you, hates your Mama, and your Papa, and everyone important to you!" No Name looked at Reaver now, pointedly. "Like _him!"_

Naveena looked at Reaver, eyes as wide as they could be without popping right out of her skull, and hissed down at No Name, "He isn't important to me. Your 'Mister' is a fool."

"You lie! Mister told me all about it! He called you a _whore!" _No Name spat at her feet, his chair bouncing slightly. "_The Lying Whore of Bowerstone!"_

Naveena slapped him across the face. It was a loud sound that filled the entire room with silence, except for the almost faint sound of a storm outside. No Name stared off to the side, before his head rolled back to regard Naveena almost jadedly.

"A name." Her voice was uneven, like broken glass. "What is his name?"

No Name looked down at the ground, hands balled into twin fists. There was a long, pregnant pause. Reaver wasn't sure what made the boy say it, or do it, but he rolled over on his master eventually. The boy at first, slowly began to cry. Quietly, the only evidence being the tears that fell from his cheeks.

"A-Alden. That's his name."

Alden.

* * *

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	29. The Who, The Why, And The What

Avarice

Chapter 29: The Who, The Why, And The What

_The curiousness of your potential kiss_

_Has got my mind and body aching_

_Really hurt me baby, really cut me baby_

_How can you have a day without a night?_

_You're the book that I have opened_

_And now I've got to know much more_

_Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack_

* * *

Alden.

Naveena's stomach felt as though it was filled with ice water. She stared at the boy, her entire body as still as an untouched pond. No Name's whole body seized, and he began to laugh, head smacking against the top of the chair, the legs scooting backwards, his head tipped in laughter.

It was a mocking sort of laughter, almost forced, "_HA! HA! HA! HA!"_

Naveena moved away, her back straightening as though it were a pole. She walked towards Reaver now, her eyes lowering to her feet, which seemed as heavy as lead. She stopped at his left shoulder.

"Make it fast." She whispered, and then she was gone.

* * *

A single gunshot rang throughout Bowerstone Castle.

Her hands were braced against the edges of the chamber pot again. The back of her eyes stung, and watered. Naveena spat, and then closed her eyes, breathing heavily. Her whole body felt like it was going to explode.

Alden. _Alden. _By the Light, she had shared private thoughts with that man. Had _eaten_ with him, treated him as though he were a friend.

Why hadn't he killed her then? He had had every opportunity then, to kill her. And he hadn't taken it. What had changed? Naveena tried to think, her eyes shut tight.

Her thinking process was slow, muddled, her thoughts dragging and merging and separating and _stop—_

Naveena's whole body lurched. An unfeeling chill spread throughout her body as she stood, legs shaking.

She knew what had to be done.

Naveena could hear her heart pounding in her ears, slow, steady, like the beating of a war drum. When she returned to the War Room, the body was gone, and Ben and Walter were there, watching her warily as she entered. Reaver was gone.

"Your Majesty…" Walter approached, softly. Naveena slunk away from him when he tried to touch her shoulder. Her eyes were unfocused, and she stood before the Map Table in the War Room.

_This is my Albion._

"We've a name. A face." Naveena started, her voice like poison. "Alden, of Bloodstone, is now an enemy to the Crown. A traitor of the worst sort."

"Bloodstone is not a part of Albion, Your Majesty, the jurisdiction of the Crown ends there." Walter spoke up, moving to stand beside Naveena as she leaned against the map. Her eyes were narrowed, squinting.

"Then we will make it a part of our jurisdiction!" She snapped, head whipping round to look at Walter. Her eyes seemed so blue that they burned like ice. For a moment, the woman that stood before Walter was not Naveena, but Sparrow herself. "I won't let that _murderer _get away with what he's done!"

Ben, who had kept silent, murmured under his breath, "And what about Logan?"

It seemed accidental, as his eyes had widened and he'd lifted his chin to look at her. Walter shot him a look of disapproval.

"I… sorry, Your Majesty."

Walter's gaze lingered on Ben, but turned softer when he looked again at Naveena, and said, "Is it really worth using up our resources for one man, Your Majesty?"

"One man," Replied Naveena, her voice as soft as sin and just as deadly. "One man who murdered the previous Hero Queen, my _mother,_ who attempted to kill me and all that is important to me! Do you think he will simply give up, now that his assassin had failed? That it will end there? Do you think he will simply not just send more, more to kill me or Logan, even Elliot? I am no longer safe in my own castle!"

She banged her fists against the edge of the Map Table, startling Ben though he tried to act smoothly as though she hadn't.

It was then that she whispered, so quietly that they had to strain to hear, "I will burn Bloodstone to the ground."

The whole room fell into silence. It was a silence that carried in the air, the people within, the grain in the wood. It was a silence which seemed half-alive, a specter that made his home in the ostentatiously decorated room of the War Room.

The doors opened and closed.

"Sister." Said Logan.

Naveena looked at him, her eyes fierce and cold.

"Leave us." She told Ben and Walter, and they did as commanded. When the doors had closed behind them, Naveena regarded her brother with newfound hostility, "I don't want to talk, Logan."

"You're going to take Bloodstone." His voice was as steely as an accusation.

"You were eavesdropping." Naveena hissed. "But of course, I can't expect anyone to leave me alone these days."

"Do you think this wise?" Logan's voice raised, and he stepped forward, glowering at his sister. "To take the army away from Bowerstone? The Darkness is _out there, _Sister. We need to prepare for the real threat!"

"I will do what _I _feel is necessary for this kingdom." She put a finger in his face. "I am the _Queen."_

Logan snatched her wrist, squeezing tightly, throwing the finger out of his face.

"Naveena, _please." _He said, looking into her face. "You're frustrated. Nor are you thinking clearly."

Her head bowed, her gaze lowered to her feet. She felt like a child again.

"You think I don't see it?" Logan asked, carefully, grasping her by the shoulders. "Don't think I've been through it?"

"Nothing you can say," Retorted Naveena, firmly. "Is going to change my mind, Logan." Her words were echoes.

"You said that before."

"I'm bringing you with me," She stated, feeling tears at the corners of her eyes. She would not cry. "To face our mother's killer. You have to come."

"And why is that?" Asked Logan, pulling away from her. His face was like metal.

"You're my brother. And she was our mother." She whispered to him. "What other reason would I need?"

Logan's shoulders slumped almost obediently, but the muscles in his face were rigid and taut. His head dipped in acquiescence, stiff and forced. Naveena turned her head away from him, looking out at the window. The rain had stopped.

She felt nothing but a black emptiness within, and questioned, "Where is Reaver?"

Her brother eyed her warily, and there was a deep-seated accusation within those dark eyes that made Naveena's stomach squirm.

"He left for his home, in Millfields." And then, softly, "Why?"

"I would like to speak with him. He's coming as well." She moved past him, feeling his eyes on the back of her head, like two small little drills boring holes into them, searching obtrusively for something he would never get out of her.

She left for Reaver's Manor, head held high.

* * *

"Well, Your Majesty, I hadn't thought to see you so soon!" Reaver had greeted her the moment she stepped into his Manor, striding out of the shadows as though he had been a part of them himself. "_Missed me, _did you? Not that I mind but—"

"Quiet." Her voice was like a knife, and the command came easily to her. But it made Reaver smile widely. "We need to talk."

Reaver strode down the steps. He was wearing nothing but a black silk shirt, his trademark white pants, and the black boots he so often wore. It struck her as odd to see him dressed so casually. But she dashed the thought away, lest she get distracted.

"Oh, whatever about?" Asked Reaver, shrugging. He was watching her with calculating eyes. "If it's about that dreadful little boy, well, he went on about nothing when you left. Really, nothing that will help you in your _investigative pursuits."_

"We're taking Bloodstone." She said, quickly, backing away from him. She wanted a wide berth. Reaver noticed this and his eyes crinkled with delight. He laughed.

"_Taking Bloodstone? _Why," He chuckled here, again, tucking a strand of inky black hair back into place. "Such a thing is impossible, Your Majesty. No one can simply _take Bloodstone."_

"We're burning it the ground. It and Alden, too." Here, she allowed herself a cruel smile. "Taking anything of value and leaving it a razed wasteland."

Reaver's whole body seemed to shake in delight, "How delightfully _evil! _Burning a town of," He raised a hand, counting fingers. "Harlots, pirates, bandits, murderers, cutthroats… the list goes on and on, Your Majesty, but I shan't bore you with the semantics."

"I thought you would like that."

"Well," Reaver pursed his lips. "You _spoil _me. How strange, though. It is only _after _our little – ah – _rapports sexuels est _that you become so _devious." _He looked at his manicured nails. "I must be a powerful influence, _meurtrier_!"

The words stabbed deeper than she wanted to admit, and she forced herself to look unperturbed at his words, "It is what is best for Albion, and my family."

Reaver looked at her though, smiling, but the smile hadn't reached his eyes. He seemed unaware of the slip in his mask, "Oh. Hide behind pretty words all you like, _meurtrier. _One can't change the truth, however."

"I'm not like you." Naveena said, icily. She glared daggers at him.

"Of course not!" This time, there was no crack in his composure. "You are _reflexion de la mere! _Your mother's daughter!"

"She wasn't like you either." She pointed at him. "You're one to talk about hiding behind pretty words!"

And she spun on the heel, infuriated and angry and _frustrated with everything, _wanting to leave the mansion and be done with him, this man, who made her _feel too much, _and she hated him and—

Thunder rolled across the skies. Naveena stopped where she stood, feet clicking abruptly against the tiled floor of his Manor. The sky seemed to crack like an egg, because the storm picked back up again, the rain slow at first, then relentless and hard. She could almost _hear _Reaver smile.

"Weren't you _going _somewhere, Your Majesty?" Asked Reaver, folding arms over his chest. "You certainly looked as though you were."

Naveena tossed him a cold glare over her shoulder, and retorted, "I _was _going somewhere. Unfortunately, I rather prefer not looking like a wet cat. So, I'm afraid I'm going to have to count on your nonexistent hospitality, Reaver."

"Nonexistent indeed!" He made a shooing motion with his hands. "Go on. _Scat."_

Instead, Naveena moved past him, and up the stairs. Reaver tutted, but a smile as wide as a blade had cut across his lips. He treaded after her.

"Really now, for a Queen to _forget _her courtesies! Your mother would be rolling in her grave." And then he corrected, "Ah, _crypt. _Or catacomb. Or _whatever."_

"Shut up." Naveena threw back at him. She stopped halfway up the steps, and Reaver almost crashed into her. She then added, "It's quiet here. Where are your servants?"

"Gone." Reaver said, frowning. "Allow me to simply say that some _fool _thought to argue for these silly little things called _rights. _He managed to get _all _of my servants to follow in the endeavor and well," He gestured around the mansion with outstretched arms. "You can see, can't you? You have eyes!"

"And just how many did you kill?"

Reaver shrugged, "I lost count, I'm afraid. And I do _so love _to keep a tally on these things!"

Naveena narrowed her eyes, and continued to walk up the stairs. Reaver quickened his pace so he was at her side, brushing her shoulders. Her stomach fluttered in its annoying little way, and it made her even more frustrated than she was before.

* * *

The clock ticked away, _tick-tock, tick-tock, _and Naveena found herself unable to do anything but watch it. She'd retired in one of the servants' rooms, wanting to be as far away from Reaver as humanly possible without being out in the rain. The fop was, of course, in his own lavish bedroom, alone. (And that surprised Naveena, though she supposed even he needed to be alone at times.)

Within the hour, a certain wanderlust took over her and she rose from the bed, taking to the halls like a rat took to the sewers. It was certainly quiet in Reaver's mansion; an unnatural sort of quiet that hadn't been present there the last time she'd slept here. The portraits in the halls hung around her, half-hidden in shadows that she didn't enjoy the sight of. She felt as though Reaver were watching her from all sides, with all those eyes.

Naveena shivered involuntarily, and continued walking around. Eventually, she found herself in the library. This was where everything had _really _started, she thought, moving along the lines of cherry bookcases. The library itself hadn't been cleaned since her last visit. In fact, it almost seemed untouched. There were books strewn across the grounds, novels and biographies, the written word in a state of almost dismaying disarray.

She tiptoed around piles, looking for something remotely boring to read, wanting sleep more than anything in the entire world at the moment.

Naveena placed _The Amazing Exploits of Baron Barnaby Beadle _on the shelf beside _Becoming A Parent, _which made her laugh at the almost ludicrous books within Reaver's selection. Eventually, she found something very familiar.

It was the diary she'd found a few months ago. Reaver's diary. It was black and leather-bound, with red writing curling on the front. Naveena stopped, tensing. She thought it would have been gone by now, moved by Reaver or destroyed or _something _at least. Naveena couldn't believe he had just left it here again, where anyone could pick it up.

She didn't deny the curiosity that was rising in her. She wanted to _know. _It was a morbid interest, of wanting to know what made up the man, the monster that had captured her interest the moment she'd seen him. Morbid, and wrong, and _bloody stupid._

Naveena sat against one of the bookcases, knees up against her chest, the diary opened in her hands.

And she read.

* * *

_This is my first night back since the renovations, and I must say that chap from Rookridge has done a splendid job. A small miracle considering he'd recently lost three toes and two family members._

_But what was I to do? He wouldn't be persuaded to abandon the construction of some worthless temple to aid me in my time of crisis. And his predecessor had simply the worst taste in furnishings. I was generous to let him live as long as I did._

_Now that awful scent of burned wood and flesh has dissipated, perhaps I shall throw a party. Ursula and Penelope will be my guests of honor. Shame Andrew crumbled to ashes in the fire. What a sweet young fellow... But such a heavy sleeper._

_It's good to be home after these three last months at sea. My ship barely made it back to port under the weight of such spoils, and then only after we disposed of those less valuable._

_It was a pity to see my new brides sink into the ocean. But their sizeable attributes rendered them unfeasibly heavy. And I'd already tossed all non-essential crew members into the ever undulating arms of the kraken._

_I believe my most cherished memory from this voyage has to be the discovery island far to the south of Albion, among waters of an indescribable blue. There, men and women consort in ways even I found slightly objectionable._

_They have little need for clothing under that gentle sun, and their fondness for a syrupy liqueur made from an obscenely-shaped fruit made it almost to too easy to plunder their possessions. I might have stayed there forever, had it not been for the monkey incident._

_I am filled with a wonderful weariness tonight. My bedroom is far too crowded to get a good night's sleep, and I'm too indolent to eject any of my lovely guests. Instead I thought I would sit in my study sipping a restorative beverage, and enjoying my own company._

_It reminds me of my very first evening in this house. My bedfellows were fewer and less charming then, but I had less energy left anyways. It isn't every day that one murders a pirate king, and takes his place._

_Oh, I had the vigor of youth back then. Real youth. How many must have I killed on my way to this very room? I shall never forget the look on the brigand's face, one so ill-suited to royalty of any kind. How he came to such a position being so slow on the draw is a perfect mystery._

_I feel somewhat reinvigorated now, and I hear stirrings upstairs. Perhaps the night the night isn't quite over yet._

_I received an unusual visitor today, an adventurer who'd toddled in through Wraithmarsh, losing neither life, limb nor sanity on the way._

_This alone would have been sufficient to mark her as a unique individual, but once I'd learned /she'd escaped from the demented grip of none other than Lord Lucien, I had knew I had quite a catch in my hands._

_I sent an emissary to speak with Lucien and come to a lucrative arrangement. Since the time of the tribute is nearing - I can already feel the wrinkles begin to form on my face - I sent the poor cow to the Shadow Court to keep her busy. I'm sure the old loon in the Spire won't mind if I post her back slightly decrepit. Should make it easier to keep her locked up._

_I think I'll celebrate my good fortune be commissioning a new portrait. I've heard of a chap with some sort of magical apparatus that renders almost lifelike results. I believe his name was Barnum, I shall have him brought to me today._

_I awoke from the nightmare again. One would think more than two hundred years would suffice to blunt it's steel. But still I see Oakvale devoured by shadows. Still those shrieks fill the air. How much longer must I live before they fall silent?_

_Such dreams belong to another time. To another man. One who would recoil from the things I've done since that night. Who might even care about all the sacrifices I've offered up to the odious Judges over... over how long? Hundreds of years?_

_I see that man as he was back then. As beautiful as me, as fiery as me, but so delicate. So breakable. And so afraid of death. I see him summon the Shadow Court into this world, oblivious to the consequences. He asks them for immunity for the disease of time and death, and they grant it._

_Then I see him running madly through fields, the realisation of just what price he has unwittingly paid hanging like a tragedy mask from his face. He falls to his knees before the town he called home- now a dark circus of screams. Hers is among them, but he can do nothing to stop it._

_What a weak, despicable man he is. But I am not he. I am Reaver. And I will sleep much better after this chalice of wine._

* * *

Naveena closed the diary with light hands, feeling at the moment more weary than she had ever felt before. Her ears rang, a long, dull note that bothered her intensely. She let the diary fall beside her, and waited to feel something.

She felt nothing, except for pity. Not disgust. Not even hatred. Just pity. A sort of empathy that didn't _belong._

Naveena closed her eyes.

* * *

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	30. Illuminate Yourself

Avarice

Chapter 30: Illuminate Yourself

_Glow,_

_Melt and flow,_

_Eviscerate your fragile frame,_

_And spill it out on the ragged floor,_

_A thousand different versions of yourself_

_Sleeping Lessons – The Shins_

* * *

_And her eyes opened._

_Around her, the world has descended into chaos. There is fire, and there is blood, and the smell of old oil is thick and nasty in the air. _

_Naveena is barefoot._

_The mud squelches between her toes uncomfortably. It takes her a while to realize she is completely naked, bare in the dense air that surrounds her. She is pale in the darkness, a brief bit of light that seems easily crushed by the darkness and the death that totally surrounds her._

_There are houses afire in the darkness, orange and red reaching up with turgid arms to lick the star-spangled sky. _

_The smoke hangs in the air, drowning the people who scream and run, looking for a way out. She stands in the midst of this. She has no idea where she is, or why. The road leading in to the burning village clears a little, and she can see someone walking forward, towards her._

_It is Reaver._

_But at the same time… it isn't him._

_This Reaver's hair is a little bit longer, shaggier, a little less well-combed. He's missing the heart tattoo over his cheekbone. There's a beauty mark instead. And his eyes seem lighter, not quite as dark._

_And he's wearing the clothes of a farmer, ragged and patched and frayed at the edges._

_And now they stand, facing one another, framed by death and illuminated by the flames._

_Two hands pressed against her shoulders, and there was a body pressed against hers. Naveena froze, unable to move, and the man in front of her fell to his knees, and fully to the ground, a corpse._

_Behind her, Reaver whispered, his wicked smile pressed against her cheek, "Meurtrier, do you see what I see?"_

_She watched Oakvale burn. The straw-tipped houses were like matchsticks. The flames spread, faster and faster, and in the darkness, the shadows seemed to move like something half-alive._

"_This is horrible." Naveena whispered. But her voice seemed louder than anything around her. It deafened the screams._

_Reaver lifted one of her arms, and it seemed to move without her accord, like she were a puppet. He kissed the inside of her bare wrist, deceptively gentle._

"_But isn't this what you wish for Bloodstone, my dear, sweet meurtrier…?"_

_And as quickly as he had said that, the flames, the screams, and the living shadows were all plunged into pitch black darkness. Now, there was nothing. Nothing except her, and Reaver._

"_Yes, but that's—"_

"_Different?" Reaver purrs, amused. "Both you and I do what we do out of such a simple, unfortunate little semantic in human nature: self-preservation. I did what I did to make sure __**I **__stayed alive. You do what you do to make sure no one comes after __**you."**_

"_I'm not like you." She whispered, but her voice held a pathetic weedy tone to it. "I'm nothing like you."_

"_Ah," And this time, he laughed against her neck. "But we __**are **__alike. So very much so, in fact."_

"_No. I can't be like you I—"_

"_Hate you?" His hand curled against her chin. "And yet, you __**love **__me."_

"_I don't." Naveena hissed, wrenching one hand free from his grip to meet the one beneath her chin. "I __**hate you."**_

_Reaver whirled her around, wildly, forcing her to face him. Naveena's eyes widened. Again, it was the boy who was Reaver but again wasn't, looking into her eyes. He leaned forward, lips brushing against hers._

_She allowed herself to close the kiss._

_And her eyes fluttered shut._

_A voice roared around her, swathed in a sound like the screams of Oakvale, like Elliot's voice, the sound of her subjects, her friends,_

"_**You are a liar."**_

* * *

Naveena and Reaver traveled to Bowerstone early in the morning, sitting together in a carriage with a wide berth of silence between the two of them. When they eventually arrived at the Castle, they were greeted by Walter, who then ushered them into the War Room.

Naveena regrouped the leaders she was bringing for the Bloodstone campaign, of whom included herself, Walter, Ben Finn, Logan and Reaver. The battle plans were relayed, and Naveena left her subjects with the promise to meet them on the Bowerstone Industrial docks soon.

Which then led her to seek out Elliot.

She found him in the gardens, looking out at the whole of Bowerstone on the balcony. The location made her stop when she approached him. Because, in a way, this was the place where it had all begun. She remembered it as if it were a lifetime ago. Because, in a way, it had been a lifetime ago.

The princess that had approached Elliot all those months ago was a very different person from the Queen who now approached her prince-consort.

"Love," She said, ever so softly. She joined him on the balcony, arms leaning against the cool stone. "Didn't expect to find you here."

Elliot looked at her, smiling slightly. His skin was almost pearly in the dim winter light.

"Well, it's good to know I can surprise you every now and then."

Naveena laughed slightly, "Yes, I do suppose it's usually the other way around."

They looked out at Bowerstone, over the packed streets of Industrial, and out at the rising smokestacks that slowly polluted the air. They basked in the chilly winter winds for a long while, saying nothing.

And then Elliot said, quietly, "I heard about… what happened to your mother. I'm sorry."

Naveena sighed, closing her eyes, "I have to stop him. You know that, right? Before he hurts us."

"I'm behind you the whole way, love." He reached for her hand on the balcony. It was warm, and Naveena twined her fingers with his. For a moment, she felt sick to her stomach, a horrible, terrible feeling that clawed at her insides.

"I wouldn't want you anywhere else, Elliot." She leaned into him, looking out at her kingdom with fervid glances.

"Well, I wouldn't want to _be _anywhere else." He chuckled.

_You are a liar, Naveena._

That's what she told herself. Instead she said, "Glad to hear it."

* * *

"I assume everything is in working order?" She asked as she approached.

There were crowds of people surrounding the docks, leaning forward, attempting to get a look at the soldiers preparing for battle. Many were angry, less so were not, but Naveena allowed the insults to roll off of her. They did not watch her mother die as she did. So they knew nothing of the fight she was immersing herself into. Only she knew. Only she.

Walter and Ben Finn were waiting for her at the docks. She supposed Logan had retreated to his quarters within the ship, as her brother was wont to do. Reaver no doubt did not want to wait for her, and had probably found a great deal of debauchery to amuse himself with inside the ships. She wondered if he had a particularly sense for finding these things, as he seemed very good at it.

"_He has lived so very long. Perhaps he just knows how to do that sort of thing far better than I."_

She dashed that thought, thinking of the diary. Naveena did not want to think of the diary.

"Yep," Ben answered, giving her a lazy nod. "We're all set. So just, y'know, _give the word."_

"And Logan and Reaver?" She asked carefully, walking towards the ship. Ben and Walter flanked her.

"Aboard already." Said Walter. "Didn't want to wait on you, I suppose."

"I'd find it odd if they did." She retorted.

Walter laughed, and the three of them boarded the main ship, the _Fenris. _There were three other ships as well, boarded with soldiers. The _Normandy, _the _Dawn Treader, _and even the _Narcissus, _Reaver's ship, which surprised Naveena somewhat, as she hadn't expected to see it again since the trip back from Bloodstone.

Below, the ocean crashed restlessly. Above, the clouds were close together, and were a deep stone-grey. It would storm soon, if she were any judge.

She told them that.

"Yeah, you see, I told Walter that already." Ben replied, frowning slightly. He peered up at the sky.

"It's late winter, not to mention its bloody cold." Walter said, nodding at Ben. "Wouldn't be surprised if we had a snow storm on our hands, Your Majesty."

"We will progress as normal." Naveena said, crossing her arms. It _was _cold. "Try not to let the storm slow us down."

"Right." Ben sighed, entirely unhappy with that plan of action. Naveena knew he'd spent some time on ships, having read snippets of his biography where she could find them. A sailor was of course never happy with having to dredge through a storm.

But they couldn't wait. The more time they spent waiting, the less time they had to catch Bloodstone by surprise.

"I will be in my room." She told them, looking out at the expansive ocean. Bloodstone was out there. And with it, Alden. "Should you need me."

She ended up not retreating to her room.

Naveena had started, yes, but her feet took her elsewhere. Below deck, where the stench of mildew was so thick it could've been cut with a knife. Where there were cobwebs hanging in the corners, and more than a few mice scuttled from her feet as she walked. It was dark, and dim, illuminated by a few hanging candles. Naveena appreciated the darkness a great deal.

When she reached the large cavernous part of the hull, she stopped. Stacks of oil, crates and lanterns and braziers and the like were piled atop one another in neat, careful heaps. The only light was the hanging candle behind her. She supposed they wanted to keep the oil as far away as possible from any source of flame, as common sense dictated.

This was enough oil to set all of Albion on fire. The _Fenris _was equipped to store things, not carry soldiers, as the other ships were. So everything, from the oil to the ammunition to the guns themselves was carried on this galleon.

It made for a certain perspective.

Naveena moved to sit, laying her back against one of the crates of oil. She looked at the heaping crates, at the logo of Reaver Industries printed on some of the faces. Her body felt all at once incredibly heavy and incredibly weightless, as though she were a piece of flotsam.

Her dream weighed on her. She was a liar. And she was like Reaver. In fact, she was so much of a liar that she lied to herself. Who was she to abhor Reaver, when she was about to burn a village to the ground?

She was exactly like him. Only, she didn't have a _reason._

Neither did he, she supposed.

But he didn't do it on _purpose. _He didn't want Oakvale to burn.

She wanted Bloodstone to, though.

Part of her wanted to stand and watch as the flames engulfed the town, swallowing it whole. She cared little for the people there, and for the village itself, and who in their right mind would miss Bloodstone?

And, if Alden were to be believed, Bloodstone wouldn't even _be _there within the next few years. The Wraithmarsh would have made the village a part of itself. Perhaps it was better, _more prudent, _to ensure Bloodstone's destruction?

Perhaps she was just trying to convince herself.

Naveena sighed and let the back of her head hit one of the crates, sending a loud echoing thunk throughout the entire hull. Tufts of overlong red hair flew up. She really needed to cut it, and soon. When her hair was longer, it grew in curls like her mother's hair.

She didn't think she really needed to emulate her mother further than she already had.

"Well, to think I would find _you here, meurtrier."_

Naveena looked up, not even surprised, because no matter where she was, Reaver seemed to find her, somehow. She wondered if he did it on purpose, and the thought made her stomach flutter just a bit, but she ignored it and simply said,

"To be honest, I can't believe I can find _myself _here."

He moved, soft as sin and silent as shadow, and sat beside her. He had abandoned his cane and hat in favor of the simple brown vest and white pants. Naveena hadn't noticed it before, but without the jacket, Reaver seemed infinitely smaller, less significant somehow. Like a cat that shed its battle stance. Naveena watched him, but felt nothing. It was though all feeling within her had been gutted out.

"It does give me a certain perspective, though." She continued, looking back at the crates. "With all this oil, I could burn all of Albion if I wanted to. Raze it to the ground. Reduce it to little more than a black smear."

Reaver chuckled, his smirk widening, "Now _that _is an exceedingly entertaining idea, _meurtrier." _

"Or I could just let the Darkness win. All the world could be shadows. Like the Shadow Court. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Reaver?" Her eyes were like chips of ice. It reminded Reaver of her mother.

"Whatever could you mean?" He asked, looking slightly uneasy, though he smiled all the same. "Certainly you aren't _insinuating anything?"_

Naveena frowned, her eyes seeing through him not at him, "What, you don't like to watch things burn?"

"Oh, well that depends," Reaver said, quietly, leaning forward as if they were sharing a secret. "Back in the good old days, any pirate worth his salt burned whatever pitiful little village he pillaged. It was _the way _you see. All that smoke and the smell of burnt flesh become quite poisonous to one's nostrils, however. Burning things is so _messy, _so _unclean."_

"Unlike shooting someone in the skull, you mean?" She replied, lips pursed. Her eyes went down now, and she let out a deep, hiccupping sigh. "Do you think Alden burned any villages?"

"Ah," Reaver smiled, looking at her with twinkling eyes. "So _now _we get to the crux of your discontentment. You feel guilty."

Naveena glared at him, her eyes like blue fire, "Well, aren't you _fucking observant! _Of course I feel guilty, how could I not? All the things I have _done," _She threw up her hands, standing up. Reaver looked up at her, nonplussed. "All the people I have _betrayed," _She pointed at him, as if he were the cause. "And all the things I _will do!"_

"I assume you still feel sorry for your droll little husband, no?" Reaver's eyebrows went up slightly, and Naveena wondered if he was getting some manner of _amusement _out of her troubles. He stood now, looking down at her just as she was moments ago. "And why ever would you? You made a choice, don't let _other people _judge you because of your choices."

"If I did _that, _Reaver, well, there wouldn't exactly be a difference between you and I, would there?"

Reaver moved closer, his grin widening and his eyes glinting like chips of tourmaline, and he whispered, "Wouldn't you want to, though? To be free of the… _bindings _other people force on you? You've become so very _fascinating _to watch in the past few days, _meurtrier… _why, it almost makes me _want to see what you can become…"_

Naveena wasn't sure how it happened.

But it did.

She hissed, swore, looked down abruptly and then back up, her eyes fierce and hard, and she reached forward, grabbing Reaver by the lapels of his brown vest and pulling him forward.

At first, her teeth smashed into his chin, but she adjusted and moved up, one hand coiling in inky hair and the other still gripping his vest, and their lips smashed together.

Reaver laughed, and she could feel his smile, a smile that cut like a knife, pressed against her cheeks. He put one hand on her shoulder, the other low, against the curve of her hip, forcing her closer.

Naveena closed her eyes, breathing in a deep, low breath. Reaver smelled like iron and darkness, and the morning after a harsh rain.

For a moment, she didn't care. All her worries were lifted off of her. All that mattered at that moment was _this. This moment. This kiss. This man._

They broke apart, and Naveena and Reaver stood, close together, two people like flotsam in a storm of worries and duties and events. Her eyes were still closed, and when she opened them, Reaver was still looking down at her, smiling slightly. Naveena felt flushed, _too warm._

"This is what I want," She said finally, her voice a whisper. "So I took it."

"So you see?" Reaver whispered back, eyes crinkled. "See how very _entertaining _that was?"

"You said I was boring, back at Bloodstone. You were done with me."

"Well you _were. _But such a leap _forward _you've made, _meurtrier!" _He touched her chin, gripping her by the neck. Naveena watched him with cold, cold eyes. "A true _Queen."_

"And it's always good to be in a Queen's good graces, right?" Naveena said, smiling slightly.

Reaver laughed, "Well, aren't you _perceptive. _But yes, I do agree! It is always good to play the cards you've been dealt in life."

"Or the ones you've stolen."

Reaver's grin was wide and wicked, and he held her even closer, "Well, yes, those too. Though, the people _I've _stolen them from weren't _using _them properly! Foolish, foolish people!"

Naveena laughed, breathily against the fabric of Reaver's vest. She knew what she wanted, and what she would do.

"I'll be waiting in my quarters later," She said, lightly, looking up at him. She would take what she wanted, and screw the consequences. "Join me if you want. Or don't. Whatever you want."

And she left, feeling Reaver's deep, dark gaze on the back of her head as she walked down the long, cobweb adorned and mouse infested hallway, the whole way.

And the whole way, she felt _free _for the first time in years.

* * *

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	31. The Warpath Of A Queen

Avarice

Chapter 31: The Warpath Of A Queen

_You're not always_

_You're not always right_

_A new fight for a last rite_

_A new fight for a last rite_

_You can fight a new fight_

_You can fight, it's alright_

_Storm and Stress – Bloc Party_

* * *

_She felt him before she saw him._

_A cold, ungloved hand that slid up her leg and around her stomach and then at her lips. She reached for him, grabbed for him pressed her lips against his. His tongue slipped in, and his hands were grabbier, rougher. She touched his face, the side of his jaw, but every part of her felt nothing, not for Elliot, not for him, and most certainly not for herself._

_Naveena sighed, and let herself go._

* * *

When she awoke the next morning, her hand reached across the great canvas that was her bed in search of his warmth, and of course, as was expected when one engaged in an illicit affair, there was nothing except a chilling cold. Naveena groaned against her pillow, and shifted, feeling decidedly lazy.

That was when the wave of nausea hit her, like a ton of bricks. Naveena felt like she wanted to fold in on herself, her whole body folding over like she'd been punched in the gut. She forced herself out of bed on unsteady feet, and all but ran out of her room.

She leaned over the balcony and puked, the sea salt spraying back in her face. Her eyes stung, and her body seemed to sway everywhere, side to side and back again. Naveena felt hands at her sides, and she looked up, feeling disoriented. It was Walter, looking startled and scared.

"I'm alright," She said, sinking to her knees. Her coughs were hacking in rough. "Just… just a little seasick."

Walter rubbed soothing circles on her back, unsure of what to say, "You should probably sit down, Your Majesty."

"Yes I…" She breathed, shoulders shaking. "Yes." And then, quietly, "How far are we from Bloodstone?"

"Not far, but if you aren't feeling up to it—"

"No. I'm fine, Walter. I'm just… I've never exactly had the best sea legs, you know that."

Walter looked at her sternly, his eyes flinty. He lead her back to her chambers, the tittering of the crew rising when the door closed. She could hear them, annoyingly enough, through the wood. Wondering and wondering and being so damned _ridiculous._

"You so sure about that, Naveena?" Walter knelt, so he was eye level with her on the bed. "You don't think that maybe…" He looked incredibly uncomfortable, his lips pressed together, mustache bristling.

Confused, Naveena glanced at him, though her hand gripped her stomach because it seemed to give a sudden _drop, _like she'd been punched, or the _Fenris _had taken a deep lurch on the sea.

"Maybe…?" Naveena started for him, her mouth almost a little dry. "What, Walter?"

"Your mother, back before your brother was born… well…" Walter seemed to look everywhere except at her. "You don't think maybe you… and Elliot…"

_That _made her stomach really drop. She knew immediately what he meant, and it hit her like a ton of bricks. She froze up, not sure how to answer or if she even _should _because _she knew _what it meant, especially now, especially for her and the only thing she could really _say _was—

"Oh." And then, softer, "Oh."

It felt like any other word, or words, would have failed her. She just had nothing to say to that.

"I don't know." Naveena looked down, at her hands, lightly calloused and seemingly so pale. Chalky, almost. "I… really don't know."

Walter pulled her into a hug, and Naveena smiled slightly against his shoulder, not really feeling up to even smiling, because beneath her skin was a turmoil of everything she was. She felt like if she smiled maybe her skin would crack and everything would pour out, and Walter would _know._

She didn't think he'd be very proud of her, then.

Maybe it didn't really matter.

"It'll be alright, girl," He said, mustache scratching the side of her face. "You're a Hero, remember?"

"Only cause you taught me to be one." She muttered, choking halfway on the word, breath wavering. Naveena was faintly aware of the fact that she was shaking, a little, the tears fighting their way out. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

Walter laughed, and pulled away, "Right. There are some things I can't teach you. You've got your mother's blood, you know that? You're her, straight to the core."

"Yeah." Naveena said, keeping her voice light and even. "That's what everyone tells me. I don't really feel like it."

"Listen, what you're doing, here and now… it's exactly what she would have done." His hands were on her shoulders. "Do what you have to, I'll be proud of you no matter what."

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Walter." Said Naveena.

"Probably be in the Castle, with your brother running all of Albion right into the ground," He replied gruffly. "But _balls, _it's better we don't think about it right now, hm?"

"Mm." Naveena agreed, nodding slightly. "I need to take care of it and then…"

Walter smiled, though Naveena noticed a nervous edge in his tone, "Well, we'll have a new prince or princess to worry about, right? Best tell Elliot as soon as possible."

Naveena looked down again, shoulders horribly slumped.

_But it might not even be his._

* * *

She tried very hard not to think about it, and slept the rest of the way to Bloodstone.

Or, at least, she tried to. Between the crazy circling of her thoughts and the dogged anticipation of what she was about to do, she didn't exactly sleep. She sat in her bed and twisted and turned and _writhed _really. She thought a lot about Reaver, and a lot about Elliot, and a lot more about how both of them looked _very different._

Naveena really should have seen this coming, and she thought that maybe _that _was what hurt the most.

Eventually, though, Bloodstone was in her sights.

And everything in her head seemed to stop, and only _this _mattered.

Naveena stalked the edges of the balcony. There were men stationed all along the swing guns of the ship, brandishing crossbows. The plan was to light the bolts on fire and let loose, torching the whole town. From there, they would proceed on foot.

Find Alden at all costs, and keep him alive. For a while.

Naveena wanted to deal with him herself.

The fog was heavy in the town. She could see it even from here, thick and milky. Her eyes found Reaver, who was leaning leisurely against the balcony of the hull, away from Bloodstone. She almost wished she knew what _he _were thinking at this moment, _his _state of mind. There was a lot she needed to approach him about, and it would be better if she had a _feel _for him of sorts.

It didn't matter right now.

Maybe it shouldn't matter at all.

"Is everyone ready?" She yelled, her voice commanding and rough, like flint.

There was a tittering amongst all of them, a chorus of sorts. She saw Ben and Walter, rising, and Logan seemed to come out of nowhere to stand beside her. The tension was thick in the air, and everyone seemed to waiting, with bated breath, for the command.

"_Now!"_

Bolts were fletched, and released.

The houses of Bloodstone caught fire immediately. She could see it clearly, as if the whole town were a giant brazier, lighting up. Red and orange, everywhere.

It was beautiful.

"Let's go." She said, her voice a mere whisper.

* * *

Reaver's shoes hit the ground, and he slunk behind Naveena.

Around him, Bloodstone was burning. The smell of smoke and fire and burning was stagnant. He could hear ravens cawing in the distance, screeching with indignation as the nests they'd built were destroyed, crumbling. The people screamed too, but Reaver didn't really care much for them. He shot everyone he saw, not exactly caring about the blood that splashed this way and that.

His suit was a bit stained with ash and coal and blood, which made him extremely annoyed. He followed Naveena, and the woman seemed to move with purpose. Her shoulders were squared.

Reaver didn't really watch the way her shoulders swayed. He was more preoccupied with the rather _delightful _way her bum looked in that enchanting ensemble of hers. Really, the woman took after her mother in more ways than one.

He shot one villager who dared get to close, and another.

Naveena cut down everyone in her path, and the blood melded in with her hair. Logan was beside him, he noticed. Everyone was covered in ash, faces caked with the stuff.

Walter and that soldier – _Ben Finn, was it? – _they were elsewhere. Reaver really didn't care for where, he much rather preferred the thrill of the fight right now. There was a certain… _beauty _to violence. It filled a bit of a void, one could say, especially in human nature. What were people without conflict, after all?

Naveena slammed a sword straight in the gut of a young lady, sliding it out a moment later and letting the corpse fall to the ground. She breathed, heavy, and Reaver watched her shoulders again. Up and down they went.

"He has to be somewhere." She said, angry, voice heavy with something Reaver couldn't exactly define. Passion, maybe?

"The Leper's Arms, perhaps?" He offered, sly and smug, shrugging. "That _is _his establishment, _meurtrier, _you _must remember."_

She threw a glance back at him, her face painted up with ash and blood, black and red, "Right. I'd forgotten."

"However," He said, stopping her because she had moved the moment he'd said that. "If _I _were that _ratty old man, _I would hide in a place you wouldn't look."

"Or a place he could fight from." Logan put in, stepping up. "A fortified position."

Logan fixed Reaver with a sour expression, before his eyes flicked quickly back to Naveena's face.

The realization hit Naveena, her eyebrows going high into the fringe of her red hair, disappearing.

"Your old mansion," She murmured, looking at the ground and then back up at him. She was biting her lip, a familiar motion. "Right. That makes sense. It would take the fire a long while to get up there… but if we take too long up there, the fire could be there when we got out. _Damn it."_

"Then I suppose we'd best be _quick _about it, hm?" Reaver replied, a smug smile across his face. "I don't know about _you, _but I rather _enjoy life. _With all its _opportunities, _ripe for the plucking!"

Naveena ran, bolted, really. Logan and Reaver ran after her, up the hill and through burning buildings, the smoke choking them at some points and choking others at most. Reaver's eyes stung, prickled, but he followed regardless, up and up the hill of Bloodstone.

His old mansion was untouched.

Naveena stopped for a moment in front of the house, with Reaver and Logan behind her. She seemed to collect herself, fingers clenching tight and hard on the sword in her hand. There was something in the _air, _something she carried with her that made Reaver extremely nostalgic.

There were sparrows on the gates of his old home, he noticed. Chattering and tittering, sitting with folded wings, heads turning this way and that way. A strange occurrence. There weren't supposed to be many sparrows in Bloodstone.

They took flight when Naveena took a step forward.

"Sister." Reaver turned to see Logan taking a step forward. Naveena stopped, looked back at him. Her face was stony and set, with blazing eyes.

It clicked in Reaver's mind. What exactly was making him so very nostalgic.

He recognized that look.

Logan seemed to, too. Because he stopped, shook his head, and seemed to decide against saying what he was going to say.

Behind them, Bloodstone was going up in a blaze. Reaver could feel the heat everywhere.

"I'm ready for this." Naveena said, to no one in particular.

"_Well," _Reaver retorted, stepping up and placing a hand on her shoulder. He gestured at his old home with one hand, "Don't waste any time! Especially not on my account, this place has become so very… _garish. _I'll be glad to see it _smolder!"_

And Naveena stepped forward.

* * *

**THERE'S GOING TO BE A REAVER SHORT FROM LIONHEAD OMG OMG OMG OMG I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW I COULD CRY.**

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**BOOKS EVERYWHERE.**

**GUYS GUYS**

**I'M CRYING.**

**A FABLE BIBLE. CANON. CANON EVERYWHERE.**

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	32. A Sparrow's Fledgling

Avarice

Chapter 32: A Sparrow's Fledgling

_And now the search party's on its way_

_And the floodlight's on my face_

_All the shadows that I walk in_

_Are just my volatile second skin_

_Reflections Are Protection – La Roux_

* * *

"Well, you're quicker than I thought you'd be." Alden said, leg crossed slightly. He had a mug of brandy in one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other. "I thought you'da been dancing around in that Castle of yours for a little longer… or, well six feet underground, like you're _supposed _to be."

The three of them stood in the doorway to the living room of the mansion, Naveena in front. When Alden opened his mouth her shoulders had squared, her whole body tensing and her lip caught between her teeth.

"You'll find," She said, quietly in reply, her head almost tucked in like she were a bull. "That Heroes are surprisingly hard to kill."

"Or incredibly damn lucky." Alden laughed, chugging the last dregs of his brandy. They stared at one another for a while, the only sound being the fire that roared in the fireplace, newly lit. Then Alden stood up, slowly, carefully and he threw the mug across the room where it hit the wall and broke, sending little glass shards everywhere.

It didn't make Naveena flinch.

"What a waste." She muttered, glancing down, and then back up. "Why?"

"Predictable question," Answered Alden. "You could ask a lot of people why and get a lot of answers back. Why does anyone do anything?"

"_Raison d'etre," _Reaver stated, shrugging slightly. "A fairly ridiculous thing to ponder, though it truly makes no sense to me."

Logan looked over at Reaver, eyes wide and heavy, "_Raison d'etre," _The words sounded heavy and clumsy on his voice. "And that is, Reaver?"

"A reason for existence," Reaver replied haughtily. "Though, why anyone would make _Bloodstone _their _raison d'etre _is beyond my _acumens."_

"Bloodstone," Alden started, glaring. His eyes seemed like storms in this light, and his old, wizened hands were balled into fists at his sides. "Is everything."

"And now it's burning." Said Naveena, pointing over her shoulder, gesturing outside. "Thanks to you. What was the point of everything? Of all this? Surely you could've seen this coming, would've thought that maybe if your assassin failed this would happen?"

"I assumed he wouldn't fail." Alden toyed with the gun in his hands, which made Logan unsheathe his sword and Naveena pull out her own pistol and point it. "And I have paid the price."

"Then _why?" _Naveena's finger was tight on the trigger, curled around it like a lifeline. "Why did you kill my mother?"

Alden rubbed the edge of his pistol, smiling to himself, "She had her sights set on Bloodstone, and I didn't want that. This is a _free _place, Your Majesty, far from your Castle and your jurisdiction, where people are allowed to rule themselves, as _they _see fit. As it was always meant to be."

"That's ridiculous," Logan retorted. "The people of Albion cannot rule themselves."

"_Take a look," _Said Reaver, stretching one arm wide, as if to gesture at the whole city. "This _place, _though it can hardly be called even that in my own, personal opinion, is a _cesspool _of degradation and _larceny, _with people who have such a flagrant disregard for their _betters." _

And here, he gestured to himself, giving Alden a small but insignificant bow, bent at the hip.

"You killed my mother, the _Hero Queen, _for that?" Naveena's face looked drawn, pinched, but her icy eyes held such a deep anger, a deep _fire. _"For such a _stupid reason!"_

Alden snapped, "**Look at what she'd become!" **His voice echoed throughout the whole room, loud and insistent. _**"And you call her a HERO?"**_

Naveena's arm wavered, the pistol tilted downward, "I…"

"She ruined half of Albion, turned part of Bowerstone into _that man's," _And here he waved a hand angrily at Reaver, spit flying from his mouth. "Personal playground! And you have the _nerve _to stand there and call _that _a _Heroic _decision? You have the _nerve _to call her a Hero, after what she'd done in the _Spire? _Do you understand, or even know, how many people died, how many people lost their family members because of _your Hero's _selfish decision? Do you?"

Naveena closed her eyes, and stood there for what seemed like a long, long while.

And then she said, quietly, though her voice was louder than anything anyone had heard,

"I said she was a Hero," She looked up, glaring, eyes like chips. "I never said she was a good person."

Alden's eyes widened, and the hands he'd flailed fell limply at his side. He looked as though all the wind had been knocked out of him, his shoulders slumping in a defeated, sad little way. He looked at Naveena almost blankly, with glassy eyes, as if he couldn't even really believe the words that came out of her mouth.

"I _know _my mother," She said, carefully, each word delicate and nearly discriminate. "She was ruthless, and she was cold, and she was every bit a Queen. But don't _you _dare stand there and tell me what is _heroic _and what is not. You are a coward, a yellow-bellied _fool. _You stand there, with your gun and your words but you don't actually _do anything. _You didn't kill my mother yourself. You had someone _else _do it for you. You didn't attempt to kill _me _yourself, you forced a teenager to do it."

Naveena steadied her arm, pointing her pistol, "What now, Alden? Everything you fought for is lost. What are you going to do now."

He ran red straight up to the tips of his ears, and he screamed, "Don't lecture me, _whore! _I'm no _coward! _You are the coward, you didn't burn this place yourself, right? _Right?"_

"I gave the order," Said Naveena. "Which makes it my fault and mine alone."

Alden seemed to deflate completely then, though he raised his pistol, turning it sideways slightly, his wrists shaking.

"Go on," Naveena whispered, her voice thick with dislike. "Shoot."

He did, and Naveena moved fast, the bullet grazing her shoulder. Logan bulleted past her, quick on his feet, and Reaver did nothing, leaned against the doorframe leisurely, smiling to himself as if this were the most amusing thing in the world. Naveena reached up, punching Alden in the jaw. The old man was sent sprawling across the ground, knocking down a chair where it clattered to the ground.

His pistol was not far from his hand, he rolled to one side, attempted to snatch it up but too late. Naveena stomped on his wrist, where it cracked satisfyingly beneath her wrist. Alden hissed between his teeth in pain, and looked up, eyes wet with tears.

"You—" His voice cracked, wavering on his breath.

"Don't speak. Don't you dare speak." Naveena whispered, gently. Logan was right behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She attempted to shrug it off, tried to roll it off her shoulder all casual-like.

"Sister," Logan said. "Calm down."

"Has anyone…" Alden spat out a glob of blood and two teeth. One of them was golden, glinting in the firelight. "Ever told you… how very much like your mother you look?"

Naveena raised her pistol, aiming straight for Alden's head.

"Too many times." She replied calmly. Her finger was on the trigger, but she seemed to change her mind because she lowered her arm again and turned to follow the hand on her shoulder. "Logan, tie him up."

"Why?" Questioned Logan, looking at her with suspicious eyes.

"Don't question me. Just do it." She reached down to pick up Alden's pistol, and left, unpinning the old man. Reaver watched her with bemused eyes, arms crossed. She threw him the pistol and he caught it.

"A gift, _meurtrier?" _Reaver asked, looking down at it. It was fine gold and red, a flintlock.

"I know how much you like guns." She responded, passing him. Naveena didn't look back once on her way out.

Logan was tying Alden up as Reaver observed the gun, turning it over and over in his palm. It was a lovely piece of equipment, far out of Alden's price range though Reaver already suspected that he had more connections than he let on.

That was when he saw the inscription on the side.

_The Red Dragon._

* * *

The hull was dank, and smelled like rotting wood and something even less savory.

Reaver wrinkled his nose as he stepped down several flights of stairs. There was a dungeon inside the _Fenris, _with cells and the like, and it seemed to him to be the only place within the ship that was not swabbed often. Which, truly, if he were being honest and Reaver considered himself to be an extremely _'honest' _person, was not very good for the sanity of anyone who happened to be visiting any prisoners.

He'd left Naveena and her posse to think up creative and ingenious ways to finish off both Bloodstone and Alden. Reaver would have liked to have joined them, but at the moment he was far more preoccupied with something that seemed to him a little more important.

Reaver held the _Red Dragon _in one hand, his fingers curled tightly around the butt. And eventually, he reached the cell at the very end.

Alden was sitting upright, back against the wooden hull, half-sitting in a pile of hay. His head was down and his shoulders were slumped, and half of his left forearm was covered in a mottled purple bruise.

Reaver dropped the _Red Dragon, _emptied because it always did one good to take precautions, in front of the cell. It made a sound that made Alden jerk awake, looking around wildly before his gaze settled on Reaver.

"This, I do believe," Reaver started, slow and with a voice that seemed soft as sin. "Is _belle reine _Sparrow's pistol. Now where, my dear Alden, did you get a weapon like this?"

A sickly smile spread itself across his lips, "Where do you _think?"_

Reaver tutted, "Tut tut, is that anyway to answer my question? How _unhelpful." _Reaver reached for the Dragonstomper at his thigh, and pointed it straight at Alden. "Now why don't you be a little truthful, for once in your life?"

"You know, Reaver," Said Alden. "I'm surprised you're here. For someone so _involved _with the princess, you sure do not hang about her much, hm?"

"My, your connections are truly outstanding. I wonder, who is the pretty little bird that's been feeding you all these pretty little songs?"

Alden laughed, quietly, "What's it like, eh? To have the kingdom of Albion at your fingertips? You _have _been using her, right?"

"Quit avoiding the question, _vous piece de merde." _Reaver growled, glaring at the man. "Why, exactly, do you have Sparrow's pistol?"

"Maybe I'm a little more like you than you care to think?" Alden replied, lifting his head up so he was looking at the ceiling. "Sparrow was not the saint that she would have liked everyone to believe."

"Sparrow was prudish," Reaver said. "You can't expect me to believe she'd let anyone as _unworthy _as you be anywhere near her?"

"Oh?" Alden looked at him. "You think that, hm? Or are you just denying it? _You _pawed after Sparrow, didn't you, if I remember correctly. Is _that _why you've got the queen under your thumb? She _does _look like her mother."

Reaver laughed, "True, so very true, but I know better than _you." _He spat the last word out as if it were poison. "I use what is given to me, and take what is not."

"I did suspect the whore just threw herself at you." Alden muttered. "She seems the type."

"Now," Said Reaver, tsking. "Is that any way to speak of such a lovely lady?"

"I will speak of whomever however I damn well please."

"Then speak of Sparrow." Reaver said, lowering his gun. "The pistol, tell me where you got the damned thing."

"I took it, when she died." Alden retorted, shifting his position.

"You were not in Bowerstone. I would have heard about it." Reaver frowned, eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"I waited, and my assassin brought it to me, late at night." Alden was looking at the pistol, eyes far away as if he were recalling a distant memory. "I killed him for it. It would have gotten me a pretty penny I thought but… I never sold it. It's such a lovely thing…"

"You do not deserve her pistol," Reaver spat. "I'll be taking it for myself, as it was meant to be." And he picked it up.

"And will you tell your _lover _that it was her mother's?" Alden retorted, looking up at Reaver with as much distaste as the other man held for him. "She'd be glad to know of that, wouldn't she?"

But Alden didn't get an answer, because Reaver just turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

* * *

"Tie him to the post tight, Walter," Naveena commanded, standing atop the ruins of Bloodstone. "He's still got working legs."

Behind her stood Logan, Ben Finn and Reaver, and the entire platoon of troops she'd brought with her, minus ten. Naveena wondered if her mother had been watching out for her from above, because the minute casualties seemed to her a miracle. Walter was tying Alden to a long wooden post, with thick wide rope.

Alden had said nothing from the moment they'd dragged him out of the hull. He'd hesitated when he'd stopped onto what was left of Bloodstone's pier, looking out at ashes and ruins, a desiccated corpse of what remained of his beloved city. The tinge of irony seemed sweet to Naveena.

"Right, Your Majesty." Walter replied, finishing up a knot near Alden's head. She had had the man gagged, not wanting to listen to his words or his excuses at all.

"Good." She said, and gestured for Logan to hand her the torch. Walter joined Ben, Logan and Reaver behind her, and Naveena turned to face her entire platoon.

"_This," _She started, gesturing to the man behind her. "Is what happens to those who go against us! Albion is a strong nation, a powerful nation, one that all of you should be proud that you are a part of. Bloodstone chose to attack us, killed your previous Queen and then attempted to kill me, but _I _survived. Because _I _am strong. Because _I am Albion."_

The torchlight flickered a bit, and a gust of wind drew through the air like a knife.

"We, _I, _could not have done what has been done here today without _you, _soldiers. A Queen, a Hero Queen, is indeed a powerful thing, a force that all of you should be wary of, but a Queen is nothing without her supporters, her generals, her soldiers and her people!"

There was a slight crescendo of voices among the platoon.

"Be _proud, _soldiers. Of what you have accomplished today, and of what you have done, and most importantly of what you have contributed to our _country!"_

She raised the torch in the air, and the platoon screamed, yelling and hooting, filled with morale. Naveena turned, facing Alden, who was watching her with accusatory eyes.

"Alden, of Bloodstone," Naveena said, her back straight and tense. "I hereby sentence you to death by the pyre, for your involvement in both the death of my mother and the attempted assassination of myself. May the Void accept you with open arms, and may you forever wander in darkness with the rest of your _kind."_

She knelt, eyes closed, and then threw the torch upon the sticks beneath Alden's feet. They lit, slowly.

And Naveena watched as a beacon was raised amidst the fog of Bloodstone.

* * *

She collapsed into the chair of her quarters, her head in her hands and her body weary, tired. Naveena felt pinched, drawn, as though every part of her was falling away at the seams. Like someone was pulling a thread out of her and attempting to see how far the string could go before she became nothing but a pile of it.

Now, she had other things to worry about. Joy.

The door opened, and she looked up. Logan filled the doorframe, and when he closed the door behind him, she noticed just how pensive he looked, almost preoccupied.

"Brother," She breathed, looking down again. "I'm glad you came."

"I thought you might…" He looked incredibly uncomfortable. "Want some company."

"Yeah, I suppose I do." Said Naveena, she gestured for him to take a seat. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed across from her, legs wide open and elbows balanced on his knees.

"Do you feel better, now?" He asked, looking away from her. Which was good, because she wasn't looking at him either.

"To…" Naveena started, and then bit her lip. "To be honest, perfectly honest, no. I feel like shit."

"They say that happens when you are… expecting."

Naveena glanced up, frowning, "Right. I suppose Walter would tell you."

"If I were being honest, sister, I would say that that's the real reason why I'm here." Logan shifted in his spot, Naveena noticed. He looked very, very fidgety.

"Oh?"

"I need to ask you a question, sister, and I need you to answer me truthfully." Logan was whispering now, and Naveena had to strain her ears to hear him. "It is something that's been… bothering me for a while now."

Naveena waited a long time, feeling something very weighty in her chest, in her heart.

"What is it, Logan?"

And this time, Logan looked up, slowly, his gaze sliding upward.

"Are you having an affair with Reaver?"

* * *

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	33. Infidelity

Avarice

Chapter 33: Infidelity

_You won't believe what I tell you_

_White coats and clever minds will choose_

_You get a lot from this loose tongue and arrogance_

_It's not appropriate don't think that it is_

_I Can Talk – Two Door Cinema_

* * *

Her whole body felt like it'd been turned to stone, like the very look Logan was giving her, both parts severe and even slightly distressed as if asking the question itself was tearing _him _apart, like it were Medusa's gaze.

Distantly, Naveena was aware that she was leaving a long stretch of time between the question and her answer, but she couldn't will herself to _move _to _say something _or to even think of something, an excuse, a roundabout way of replying.

"_What?" _She said, finally, but her mouth felt dry everywhere, and she tried to swallow but her throat felt like it were caught. Naveena added, her voice softer, a cat's paw, "How can you even _ask _me that?"

And this time it looked to her as though _Logan _were frozen. He seemed to shrink at that, visibly, flinching away from her before lacing his hands together between his knees. She recognized it as something he did when he was nervous, or highly uncomfortable.

"Logan, I _love _Elliot." She continued, accusation buried deep in her voice. Even to her, though, the words sounded very much like a lie.

"Sister," Logan retorted, voice even and passive. "I'm not blind, even if _you _like to think that I am."

_That _quieted her, felt like a punch in the gut.

"I…" She looked down, at her wrists, and she toyed with the fabric around them. "Where did you even _get _this stupid idea in your head?"

"Months ago, when that ball was held in honor of _my _defeat," He said, and she could feel his eyes on her, weighty and ireful. "You and Reaver were both absent for the latter half of it."

"And I told you that I left," She interrupted. "Because parties are _frivolous _and I saw the Darkness and really, I just wanted to be _alone."_

Which wasn't exactly a lie, a half-truth really. She raised her eyes to meet his, glaring.

"I assume Reaver found you." Logan stated, and he was watching her carefully, looking for any sign of lying or nervousness and she could _feel _the way he was analyzing her, like she were a research subject.

Naveena blushed, felt herself go red, could feel the way the heat of her body spread _everywhere _and she tried to force it down, bit her lip and closed in her shoulders like she were cold.

"That's not—"

"And then," Logan continued, not allowing her to speak. "You defend him, treat him as one of your greatest allies. Against the Darkness, this assassin—"

"He _is _an ally." She said, forcefully, her hands gripping her knees tight. It made her knuckles turn almost pearly. "He helped me against the Darkness, _saved _me from the Crawler, and yes he is _vile _but for what he has done for Albion, for _me—"_

"And what has he done for you, sister?" Asked Logan, his voice rising, growing angrier. Naveena froze up, lips parted, looking up at her brother as if he were the most striking thing the world had to offer.

She fumed, "How _dare _you."

Logan's eyes widened, enough so that she could almost see the white around all the edges, and his lips settled into a thick, deep crease. Almost bloodless, they were pursed so hard. He looked outraged, indignant and furious.

Naveena hissed, "I am an _adult," _She emphasized the word, stretched it as if that would make it more meaningful. "And I can make my _own decisions."_

"I'm not saying that," Logan spat, leaning forward from his spot on the edge of her bed. "Light above, do you think I'm doing this just to make you _angry?"_

"At this point it seems like you are."

Logan breathed, let his shoulders slump and closed his eyes before opening them again at half-mast. This time, he was doing his best to not even look at her, to avoid looking at her with all he could.

"I care about you." He said, finally, after a moment's silence. "You are my sister, my _Queen, _and I… you need to be _free _of everything, of all your burdens. We have the _Darkness _on the horizon, and here you are, _pregnant _and it may not even…"

"Do you _think," _Said Naveena. "For one second that I haven't thought about all of that? That I don't realize that maybe, just maybe, my decisions are costing thousands, no _millions, _of people their lives?"

She was livid now, the red rushing straight to the roots of her hair, her eyes wide and haunting in her face. Naveena just looked at him, lips slightly parted leaving a thin slice of black between them, before letting out a shaky, rattling breath.

And she cried. One fat tear rolled across her right cheek, and she seemed to close in on herself altogether, wrapping her arms around herself and tucking in her head, as if doing so would make her go away. Logan stood, ran to her, placing one hand on her shoulder and the other at her face, looking in.

"It's okay." She sniffled. "I'm okay."

"I'm here for you," Said Logan. "Do you understand? I am your brother, and I _know, _I _know _what you are going through. You don't have to do any of this alone."

"I'm a liar." She whispered against the nape of his neck, reaching out to hold him like she was twelve again and their mother had just died. "I'm such a liar."

Logan said nothing to that, just circled her in his arms and petted the back of her short, red hair.

* * *

_Theresa appeared in front of her, though she seemed to get farther away, like she was seeing all of this in tunnel vision._

"_Do you see now, princess?" Theresa whispered, and even the old woman's voice seemed far away. "I told you, time and again that you should not get close to Reaver. And now," Theresa's brow furrowed. "The future itself is uncertain. I see nothing, a black emptiness."_

_Naveena opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Theresa was just getting farther away._

"_You will not see me again," Said Theresa, shifting from one foot to the other. "Of this, I am certain."_

_The fog of the Road to Rule became thicker, heavier. Naveena could feel its oppressing presence closing in, trapping her._

"_Do you not wish the future would take a different path?" Theresa was disappearing, fading into a silhouette within the fog. "But that would defeat the purpose of consequences I'm afraid, dear princess."_

* * *

She woke up, covered in a sheen of sweat, the traces of her dream falling between her fingers like water. Naveena shot up, sitting, gasping for air, shoulders shaking as she tried to recall her dream. It _seemed _important, felt like something she should remember but she couldn't. She raised a hand to her forehead, feeling slightly feverish, warm to the touch.

Naveena let out a shaky, papery sigh and decided to get up. There was no way she was going to be getting back to sleep anytime soon, not with her insomnia, so her time was better sent trying to walk herself to sleep.

When she entered upon the deck though, she realized she wasn't exactly alone.

"You know," She said as she leaned against the balcony beside Reaver. "There's a saying, some sort of stupid cliché… it goes, _we really should stop meeting like this."_

Reaver laughed, softly, "I suppose, _meurtrier."_

She noticed he looked almost as drained as her, with quickly fading circles beneath his eyes. For some reason, she wasn't sure what, but it almost bothered her to see him look so tired.

"Bad dreams?" She asked, quietly, looking out at the deep dark sea. From here, the sea seemed like the end of the world. Naveena wondered what it would be like to teeter off the edge, and to fall into some great black abyss, fall in with the stars and the sky maybe, to never think about anything important ever again.

Reaver glanced at her, a quick skittering sort of glance that she barely noticed, "One could say that."

She felt something press into her palm, and she looked down. Reaver was handing her the gun she had given him last night, the fine gold and red one.

"Uh…" She said, unsure what to say.

"It was Sparrow's," Reaver muttered, looking down at the ocean. "I _do _like guns, _meurtrier, _but only a _certain _kind. _Really, _you should know me better by now!"

"Stop trying to hide underneath your selfishness," Naveena replied, smiling widely at him, before adding, "You prick."

Reaver gave her a long sideways glance, _"My! _What your mother would say if she heard those words out of your mouth!"

"I feel like she would give me a pat on the back," Naveena chuckled. "Maybe a lollipop for good measure."

Reaver laughed at that, low and rumbling, "Yes, maybe _so."_

It struck her, at that moment, that this seemed like such an incredibly odd conversation. So inane and rambling and just plain _pleasant. _And yet, so roundabout, avoiding the real issue she felt. Naveena looked away, and then back up, catching Reaver's eyes. She let herself look into his eyes for a too-long time, admiring the way those dark eyes seemed to really _glimmer _in the darkness, and trying to ignore the shadows she knew lay just beneath, like a coat of paint.

"I'm pregnant." She said, whispered really, almost so low she barely heard herself say it. She didn't think there were two other words that were more difficult to say than these two.

"_And?" _ Reaver asked, raising an eyebrow, hardly fazed. "Surely you realize that the little _whelp _is hardly _mine…"_

"You never know." Said Naveena, retorted really. "You aren't the least bit fazed? Worried, even?"

Reaver looked deep into her eyes, leaning forward and cupping her by the cheek. Naveena froze, eyes wide like a girl caught in the crosshair of a wolf's vision, and leaned into the kiss when Reaver bent down to catch her lips.

Her fingers found purchase in his neck, and at his jaw. When he broke off the kiss with a loud wet sound, to place lips at the nape of her neck, she thought she could see a slice of the white of his teeth in the corner of her eyes.

"You're still _mine, mon reine, _regardless of your inane husband or _his _little _brat." _

Naveena gasped when he nipped at her collarbone, eyes shut tight. A wind crawled across the deck, brushing strands of hair and rustling the looser parts of their clothes. Naveena found herself digging fingers into the lapels of Reaver's jacket, hissing when Reaver pulled away from her collarbone, leaving behind a dark mark in his wake.

"_You," _She whispered against his coat as he ran fingers through her hair, feeling the mark with bare fingers. "Are a man of the _worst sort."_

Reaver laughed, and she could feel the rumble in his chest.

So she added, "But I think that's what I like about you," And then, a little softer. "And I kind of hate myself for it."

"Do what _you _want _meurtrier," _Reaver told her, tilting her chin up so she was forced to look at him. "No one else matters."

"Yeah," She replied, sounding unconvinced. "You're right."

* * *

Reaver noticed she was wearing a high-necked dress when they boarded onto Bowerstone Industrial's pier that morning, and he could barely resist a breathy little laugh at that. He noticed Logan was staring at him, boring holes into the back of his head, and he had a _hunch _that the dark prince _knew. _A hunch, and Reaver did consider himself fairly astute and observant of others' reactions.

Naveena gave them a fairly long speech that Reaver only half-listened to, before dismissing them. Reaver found himself raising a carriage in front of Bowerstone Castle before long, one to take him back to Millfields.

He did manage to get one, but when he opened it, he noticed Logan was sitting within as well.

Reaver sat next to him.

"_My, _rather cloak and dagger, eh my _prince?" _He offered, when he got himself situated beside the dark-haired youth. Logan was staring straight-ahead, stern and offering no hint as to what he was thinking. Reaver thought he was more like his father, Lloyd than Naveena, with those stony mannerisms.

"I thought, Reaver," Said Logan, keeping his voice light. Reaver thought that that sounded difficult. "That we could have a nice chat before you return to Millfields."

"Well, who am I to deny you?" Shrugged Reaver, putting both hands on his cane, leaning into it. The carriage seemed cramped to him, and Reaver didn't enjoy close quarters. "Although, I must say, for a boy as _shrewd _as yourself, I may have expected you to come to the conclusion you have a little sooner. An overestimation, on my part."

"Stay away from her." Logan said, getting straight to the point. "Do you understand me? I don't want you anywhere near my sister."

"I believe she likes to make her own decisions." Quipped Reaver, smiling politely at Logan. "Which you, my _sweet prince, _should let her do."

"Funny," Logan muttered, sighing. "That's what she said."

"Indeed, because it is so _very true!" _Reaver lilted, before taking one hand and tapping against the holster of his thigh. "Now be a good boy and get out of my carriage, will you? You're beginning to tire me."

Logan sent him a long look, filled with the greatest amount of antipathy and hatred he could muster, before opening the carriage door, exiting, and slamming it shut. Reaver tapped the window with his cane.

"Well, man, to Millfields!" He shouted, smiling to himself and nearly snickering himself sick.

* * *

"So, what was it you needed to tell me?" Asked Elliot, his voice lilting slightly, raising. He had kissed her silly the minute she'd entered the Castle, and Naveena had to work herself past the whiplash she'd almost felt when he pulled her into his arms.

"Well," Naveena replied, amused, smiling at him, though her smiles seemed more forced these days. "Sit down!"

They sat down on the couch together, and Naveena took Elliot's hands in hers, lacing them together. She looked down at them, not denying the feeling she had in the pit of her stomach, something icy and incredibly uncomfortable.

"What I wanted to tell you was…" She started, but her tongue felt like a stone in her mouth. There were so many ways to finish that sentence, she knew.

_I lied to you._

_I'm having an affair._

_I'm afraid, love, that I may not love you anymore._

_I'm in love, maybe just a little, with Reaver. _

That last one made her blink, almost made her shake her head. _Where did that come from?_

She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and looked into Elliot's face. That kind, horribly kind face, with the too-wide smile and those bright brown eyes. He started to look a little strained around the edges though, as the silence carried on.

So she finished, "I am pregnant."

His face seemed to freeze like that, for a minute, before falling slightly, like he couldn't believe what he just heard. Elliot's eyebrows furrowed, like he was letting the sentence process through his head.

The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "You… you're _sure?"_

Naveena frowned, and Elliot seemed to realize that that came out wrong, because his expression did a little backpedal, looking confused and then surprised and even slightly horrified.

"I… I mean that's great, that wasn't supposed to come out—"

Naveena laughed, "I know."

And that seemed to make Elliot relax all over again. He drew her into a hug, his voice doing a tight little hitch, and Naveena realized that he was _crying. _She circled her arms around him, feeling slightly hollow as she did so.

Part of her wished she'd told him the whole truth.

No going back now.

* * *

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	34. Night Terrors

Avarice

Chapter 34: Night Terrors

_Love the way you treat me so badly_

_Get your thrill just to get at me_

_I'm no better, can't wait to tell ya_

_I got it on camera, lie low on me_

_Irresistible - Temposhark_

* * *

_Her red cape trailed behind her, shifting in the wind, rippling as if it were made of water. Silk, maybe. Naveena pulled her hood over her head, shifting the basket in the crook of her arm uneasily. Around her, the darkness and the woods seemed never ending._

"_Do not stray from the path." She heard Alden say, his voice gruff and false. She could feel herself bristle. "Do not let him lead you from the path."_

"_I would never," She can hear her own voice, though her lips do not move. "Let anyone lead me away from what I want."_

"_Yes you would." This time, her mother. Sparrow's voice made her ache inside. "Do not lie to me, Veena."_

_The woods were thick with pine and tall oaks. The path ahead was clear, cutting a line for her to follow._

_But what if she didn't want to follow the path?_

"_Where am I even going?" Her voice again, and again her lips did not move._

"_To Walter's house," She heard her mother chide. "Don't you remember?"_

"_But you never told me that." She tries to say, but this time her voice just echoes all around her, like she was in a tunnel or a cave. No answer to that, she noticed. But oh well, for some reason she couldn't bring herself to care._

_She continued walking, but the path felt like it would never end._

"_Perhaps," She thought, though she could hear her own voice. "If I went through the woods I may be able to get there faster."_

_And to her it seemed an ingenious idea, and her legs moved without her wanting them to, like she were on autopilot. The basket swung to and fro in the crook of her arm, and inside it smelt of old brandy and frosted cakes, and it made her mouth water. She did so love frosted cakes._

_She pushes past low-hanging branches of pine, the needles shaking to the ground. Leaves crunch beneath her shoes, and all around there is the smell of autumn, and underneath even that the stench of blood, something that she can almost taste on her tongue. But she moves forward anyway, lets the branches scrape her cheeks and lets the mud soil her clothes._

_Naveena is not entirely sure again where she is moving, or why, or even the purpose of anything anymore._

"_Do not let him stray you from the path…" She heard, and again it is Alden's voice._

"_Do not let him stray you from the path…" Her mother._

"_Do not let him stray you from the path…" And now Elliot, softer than ever, far away._

_She reached the clearing, pushed past a face full of branches and then…_

* * *

Her eyes open, she is startled awake. Her eyes were wild, searching, and the wooden clock on the wall dictated that it was past midnight. Naveena searched for the warmth beside her, finding Elliot, and curled into him.

He stirred awake, two eyes bright in the darkness, "Are you… hm… okay?"

"Nightmares." She replied, as if that explained everything. Elliot reached out and held her, breathing heavy into her neck.

"I'm… here…" He yawned, sleepily.

"I know." She whimpered petulantly, grasping his arms with her hands, holding them tighter to her. He smelled like spring, and she tried to breath it all in, erase the smell of autumn from her brain.

* * *

_He stood there, leaning against a tree. Dressed all in black, the edges of his clothes trimmed in deep, arresting brown. Reaver's wearing crimson goggles, hiding his eyes, and there's a single apple in one hand, half-eaten._

_Naveena froze, her red cape whipping about her ankles._

"_My," Said Reaver, his fur ruffling in the wind. "Such a pretty thing you are, little red."_

_She could feel heat spreading everywhere, across her cheeks and almost along the edges of her stomach, a warmth that spread southward and all around. She held her basket closer to her, protectively._

"_Who…" She heard her voice say. "Who are you?"_

"_Me, little red? Why, have you not heard of the Big Bad Wolf?"_

* * *

Her skirt fell around her ankles, and she stepped over it to join Reaver in his bed.

"_Meurtrier," _He whispered, pressing a kiss to her lips and running a hand along the contours of her naked body. "You look so _very _tired. I do hope _ruling _is not working you overmuch."

"I haven't been able to get a lot of sleep lately." She told him, not sure how to explain her dreams. "Hopefully you can remedy that."

Reaver laughed, pulled her forward, yanked her really, "Oh _yes, _that I most certainly _can _do."

Their teeth clacked together slightly when she pulled him in for a kiss. She'd told Elliot she had business to attend to, Quests to finish and money to gather.

She was here, though, in Reaver's Manor, in his bed.

* * *

"_The Big Bad Wolf?" Asked Naveena, looking at him sourly. "I've never heard of such a thing."_

_Reaver looked at the apple in his hand, and then back at her, his lips curled wolfishly, dangerously, a twist in the cheek that seemed nearly unnatural to her, animalistic. To her it seemed half a sneer and half a smile, as if he couldn't decide between those expressions._

"_Truly? I would have thought that all people these days knew of the Big Bad Wolf. A shame, a real shame."_

_He threw the apple, barely eaten, behind him and strolled towards her. The darkness of the woods seemed to really press in, then, thickening like it were a fog of sorts. Or all the trees were leaning in, eager to hear the conversation, all their leaves ears and their branches curled hands._

"_My, where are you going with all that food?" He asked, gently, leaning in to her intimately. He was taller than her, by half a head, so she had to look up. "Surely you cannot mean to eat all of that alone…"_

"_I'm going to my," Her voice hitched, cracked slightly as if her throat didn't want to speak word. "Grand… To Walter's house."_

"_And I suppose you took the path," He pointed behind her, smirking. "And realized just how terribly long it is, and came this way, no?"_

"_I… yes."_

_Reaver stroked the side of her cheek, a light brushing caress that tickled slightly and made the blood beneath her skin boil._

"_Well, you silly, silly girl, surely you've realized that there is more than one path to your dear Walter's abode, no?" He asked, tilting her chin up. "And lucky for you, little red, I just so happen to know the way!"_

_She wanted to tell him no, could hear her mother's voice niggling in the back of her head, a tickle there._

_Instead, she replied weakly, "Oh?"_

* * *

She laid the book out on the table, felt the pages crinkle beneath her fingers as she turned each page. Her mother's books are sparse and old, left behind in the library for other readers, all people.

The pages are decorated, illustrated. There is a young girl in a long red cloak running, running from something? Her home, her life, her mother, her husband? Naveena isn't gentle with the pages, wants them to rip.

Elliot placed a hand on her shoulder late at night, when all that was left in the library was her, dying candlelight and _Little Red Riding Hood._

"Love?" He asked, leaning down so he was face-level with her. "You need to get some rest."

"I'm not tired, Elliot." She replied, gruffly, glaring at him.

"It's been a few days since you came back," Elliot said, to no one in particular. Himself, maybe. "I know it's been… bothering you, and I'm sorry for that, but you need to sleep."

She let him pull her up, and felt the warmth of his hand when he took her to bed, and enjoyed the kindness of his kisses when they were in their – _her – _bed.

* * *

"_Oh yes, my dear." Said Reaver. "In fact…" And here, his smile seemed to only grow wider, more wolfish. "Why don't we play a little game? You do love games, no?"_

"_A game?" She asked, her voice feeling weaker than ever. The wind whipped them again, rustling fur and cape alike. Her hood was blown back. "What kind of game?"_

"_Why, I wish to prove to you the slowness of the path you took!" Reaver said, arms outstretched, all wide smiles and warm eyes. "I'll take the shortcut, and you will take your previous path, and we will see just who gets there sooner!"_

"_And what happens if I get there before you," Naveena asked, head tipping up, challenging. "Or you get there before me?"_

_Reaver's grin grew longer and longer, like an untamed weed, "Well, I'm sure you'll think of something my dear!"_

_Naveena eyed him warily, biting her lip. Even in dreams, her old habits did not escape her. She stretched out a single arm, her eyes never leaving his and his never leaving hers._

"_Well then," She said, though her whole throat felt as though it were going to shatter. "Let's play this game of yours."_

_And she heard, yet again, "Do not let him stray you from the path…"_

* * *

They shared a glass of wine in her study. Discussing business details, officially, but of course there is nothing official about this.

"Why did Alden have my mother's pistol?" She asked, carefully, fingers laced in her lap. Reaver watched her, evenly, before shrugging.

"Whoever knows, _meurtriere, _perhaps he picked it up from somewhere?"

Her eyes narrowed, but her lips were pursed. She beckoned him over with one hand, curling her fingers and he moved, locking her lips with his. She sighed into the kiss, reached for him. Closed her eyes and tossed away her thoughts, focused on one thing and one thing only.

* * *

_Naveena moved quickly and loudly, branches snapping beneath her feet and rocks kicked every which way. Her basket swung here and there, and she had to tug on the front of her hood to ensure it stayed on her head. The wind whistled through the trees, a low sighing sound that sent chills down her spine._

"_Do not let him stray you from the path…"_

_The trees pressed in close again, but she continued walking, looking for any sign that they were thinning out, looking for Walter's looming house within the trees, or the lantern that hung from his shingles. _

_She could see it then, clear as day, the light of a lantern, flickering, flickering…_

* * *

"I'm worried," She told Elliot. "About this whole thing, my pregnancy and you and just… all of it, really, if I'm being honest."

He put his hand on hers, knelt and looked up as she sat on that couch.

"I know," Said Elliot. "But I want you to know that I'm here for you, love. I'll always be here."

"Yeah," She whispered, but her voice hitched in her own throat. "Me too."

* * *

_She rapped white-gloved knuckles on the door, and the sound it made when she did echoed everywhere it seemed, made a sound that drilled holes right into her brain, something that dug beneath her skin and crawled around, everywhere and nowhere all at once._

_A nasally voice replied, "Is that __**you, **__little red?" It sounded like Walter but then it didn't. "Do come in!"_

_Naveena hesitated, hand on the doorknob. Her body felt like someone had twisted a knife deep inside her spine, paralyzed her and left her there, a frozen statue._

_She twisted the doorknob and entered, the door creaking on its hinge. She could not quite remember it ever doing that before in all the times she had opened this door. Naveena stood in the sparsely-decorated living room of Walter's abode, and waited._

"_Little red," Cried Walter, though it didn't really sound like Walter, not to her, but who else could it have been? "I'm in here, I'm afraid I've come down with quite a…" There was a cough. "Cold."_

* * *

"I'm not sure if I'm ready for this." She said, looking out the huge window, one hand pressed against her stomach.

Behind her, tangled in his sheets, Reaver replied, "Well, there _is _no going back now, I'm afraid!"

Her laugh was dry, and when she spoke her voice was full of hesitation, "That isn't true. I could always run away." There was a pause_. "We_ could run away."

Reaver laughed, which made Naveena's shoulders slump as if deflated, "My, delightful though the prospect may be, I certainly have no desire to miss out on _this _war."

"Why not?" She asked. "You like to run away."

Reaver's nose flared, "_Because, meurtriere, _I do so enjoy violence. And there is a certain… _chaos _to this _Darkness _that not even you can deny is fascinating…"

* * *

_She stood there in Walter's living room, which contained only a small brown loveseat and a dinged table, waiting, feeling a slight chill even in here where it was usually warm._

"_I'm in my room," Coughed Walter. "Little red."_

_Her feet moved without her even wanting them to, and she could hear all sorts of niggling whispers in her brain, but they were too distant and too rough to make out. So instead they made a buzzing sound that seemed to smack against the inside of her skull, an attempt to garner attention it would never receive._

_She opened the door of Walter's bedroom, opening the door slowly with one hand on the pane and the other on the knob. She could see a lump in the mattress, and a man dressed in Walter's clothes who had Walter's beard and mustache._

_Naveena looked him over, from his feet to his head, and said, "Walter, what skinny arms you have…"_

_Walter had bigger, burlier arms, made for lifting a sword. This Walter's arms were sinewy, lean._

"_All the better to hug you with, my dear." Said Walter._

_Naveena looked at those eyes, and the basket fell from her hands, tilting over and sending cakes and brandy everywhere, "Walter… what strange eyes you have…"_

_Walter had gray eyes, that were light and joking. This Walter's eyes were burning brown, like the brandy that pooled about her feet._

"_All the better to look upon you, my dear." Said Walter._

_Naveena stared at those lips, and her voice left her, knocked out of her, "Walter… what sharp teeth you have."_

_The Big Bad Wolf grinned from ear to ear, "All the better to eat you with, my dear!"_

_He tore upwards and was across the room before she could even think. His body slammed into hers, pinned her against the wall and caught her lips. She could feel his teeth, nipping and biting, everywhere. She tried to push him away, hands catching in Walter's clothes, but in the end she gave up, and resigned herself to her fate._

_The niggling in her mind became louder, booming and powerful, "DO NOT LET HIM STRAY YOU FROM THE PATH!"_

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**

**So... the next chapter is going to be hand-killingly long, as it will be documenting several months. I would not expect a speedy update for the next chapter. :-/  
**

**Also, special thanks to Inn0centChiild, for pointing out the fact that _meurtrier _applies only to male murderers, whereas Naveena would be called a _meurtriere,_ as she is very, very female. _Meurtriere_ also has an accent, however I have the shittiest computer to have been sold and cannot use accents.  
**

**And, I have the last chapter of Avarice completely written. (To be specific, the epilogue.) The ending is making me all-kinds of nervous, as I want it to be absolutely perfect for you guys, and also to have fit within the sense of this story. Endings have never been my forte, as evidenced by my previous Old Shame Vindicated, which yeah let's not even talk about that!  
**


	35. The Tower

Avarice

Chapter 35: The Tower

_Between the devil and the deep blue sea_

_I stare into the abyss_

_The open water is an awful thing_

_But I'm anxious till the anchor is away_

_I'm starting to believe the ocean's much like you_

_Cause it gives and takes away_

_Open Water - Thrice_

* * *

"The Bowerstone Orphanage will _not _be turned into a Brothel," Said Naveena, her face set with annoyance and her legs crossed. Reaver shot her a distinct look of contrived sadness. "The Shelter is to be used for the good of the less fortunate within Bowerstone Industrial, and will be renovated to suit the needs of the people. I hand that task to Page, as she knows the people best, I believe."

Page gave her a slight smile, which was as genuine a smile as she was ever going to get from the rebel leader.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

Naveena gave her a curt nod, and the crowd tittered nervously around them. Mixed reactions. Many wanted a brothel, it seemed, and yes the money would have been very useful for the treasury, and Light knew the treasury needed it. However, Naveena felt that she was not in the business of exploiting her people. If people wanted sex they could find it on their own, with people they knew and loved.

Or people they didn't. It mattered little to her.

Naveena stood as the people filed out to leave, and said, "Reaver, may I have a word with you?"

Reaver stopped, and Walter sent her a questioning look as he passed her, and she added, "In my study, if you will."

There was the slightest hint of a smirk, but he followed her without saying a word. The two of them struck a very contrasting pair as they went down the hallway. The tall deviant in white, his cane clacking against the floor with each step, and the Queen dressed in deep blues and gold, the very figure of what a Queen should look.

When they entered her study, Naveena took the Crown off her head and placed it on her desk, before turning to look at Reaver, who closed the door behind him quietly.

"I must say, Your Majesty," Said Reaver, smugly, throwing his cane and hat on top of the couch to his left. "You are truly getting bolder, _why _I almost thought your dear _mentor _may have suspected something. Though I suppose he is a bit too dim—"

"Logan talked to you." Naveena cut him off, peeling both her gloves from her hands. "About what?"

Reaver moved over to her, grasping her stomach with one hand, where there was the distinct forming of a bump, and her chin with the other, tilting it up. She watched him stonily, though her hand moved instinctively to grab his wrist tightly.

"Why, about _you, _of course, _meurtriere!" _Reaver replied, before kissing the bridge of her nose. Naveena's eyes squeezed shut. "Just as he talked to you, no doubt."

"That idiot…" She mumbled, and Reaver pressed a hungry kiss to her lips. Her hand went from his wrist to his neck, thumb applying a painful pressure to his adam's apple. Reaver leaned in, pressing her against the desk. She climbed up, sitting on the edge, and Reaver moved in between her legs.

They broke apart for a moment, and Naveena let out a deep sigh, blush staining her cheeks, "I think he wants me to tell Elliot about all of this." She waved at him, eyes never looking up, just set on his chest. "He won't do it himself, though. I know."

"Oh?" Reaver questioned, smiling his wide smile.

Naveena made noncommittal sound, slightly distracted, "He can't know. I don't want to hurt him."

"Do stop your _banale parler," _Reaver said, before leaning in close and nipping at the lobe of her ear. Naveena let out a hitched sound. "I find it almost a tad… _off-putting."_

"Right." Sighed Naveena, eyes closed shut. "Right."

* * *

"I'm nervous." Elliot told her that night, as they laid beside one another, propped on their sides, speaking in hushed tones while they faced one another. She could barely make out his face in this darkness, just the deeper shadows of his eyes and the lightness of his smile. "About all of this."

"Tell me about it," Naveena sighed, reaching out to touch him, lightly on the shoulder, tracing the edges of his arm. "I didn't think we'd ever have kids."

Elliot laughed lightly, "What's _that _supposed to mean?"

Naveena glared, a frown tugging at her lips, "It's not something you… well, you think about, you know? And then it happens and…" She trailed off, feeling a familiar lump in her throat. "I don't know where we go from here, I guess. I mean, what now? What happens from here on out?"

"Well," Elliot made a sort of confused little noise before continuing, "I guess life just goes on, love. And then it happens, and we've got a little girl or boy to take care of."

Naveena laughed, low and sort of unsure, "Yeah, I guess." She rolled over on her back, tangled slightly in the sheets of her bed. "Elliot, _love…"_

Elliot propped himself on one elbow so he could look down at her, "What is it?"

"If…" She started, but then she stopped, shaking her head slow, left to right. "Oh, never mind. It's a dumb question."

"You know you can tell me anything," Elliot said, smiling at her like she were the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. "I'm here for you."

"I know." Naveena said, and then quieter, "I know that."

Elliot looked a little uncomfortable, so he switched positions and laid down beside her, circling an arm behind her head, pinning her a little with his light, pressing weight. Naveena noted the difference between him and Reaver. Reaver had a more rough weight, pinning and hungry and sort of devouring, and Elliot was a bit more thoughtful, considerate of where he put his weight.

"I know this stress has been getting to you," He whispered, breath warm against her cheeks. "If you need someone to take your mind off it…"

"I'm good, thanks love." She rolled over on her side, yanking the sheets and crushing his arm. "But not tonight."

"W-What…" Elliot sounded a little shocked, a measure disappointed. "But…"

"Not tonight." She repeated and then she shut her eyes and tried to sleep.

* * *

_She dreamed of the Darkness. The Crawler was whispering to her, and nothing but a great sweeping blackness spread out everywhere, all around, with no light in sight._

_It would appear and disappear and she would run, and hear its taunts everywhere._

"_We are coming." And then a laugh, high and taunting. "We will devour your kingdom."_

_She could feel tears on her cheeks, as she ran faster and faster. The ground below felt like it were becoming a sea, and she was slogging through a black bog._

"_You can never escape the Darkness. It flocks to you always."_

_It was knee-high now, and Naveena tried harder and harder to move through it. She could almost feel The Crawler getting closer, a presence behind her that seemed overpowering._

"_You have done such hurtful things. The people shall rejoice in your death."_

_Waist-high, it made her nearly immovable. She felt like she were trapped in it. Naveena cried out for help, for anyone who would listen._

"_Death beats its wings for you…" _

_It appeared before her, above the bog, reaching out with spindly, clawed fingers. Its black eyes were deep and gleaming, and she could see her own reflection in them, her terrified, horrified expression. It reached for his eyes, clawing at them, and she heard her own scream echo about in the blackness._

"_THE SIGHT IS OURS!"_

* * *

"I…" She placed the teacup on the table with a clack. The fireplace cackled. "I had a dream about the Darkness last night."

Logan was holding his cup in his hands, looking down into it. A frown marred his features, and unconsciously the thumb of his free hand traced the scar down his lip.

"The Darkness is something that stays with you for a long time, sister." He said after a long moment, before taking a sip.

Naveena sighed, and leaned back in her chair, "How did you deal with it?"

"I focused on what mattered," Said Logan. "And that was, at the time, Albion."

"And now?"

"Now," And Logan looked at her with deep, focused eyes. "What matters is _you."_

"Albion." Naveena said, stated really, in a voice that was both parts commanding and disdainful. "Albion is what should matter."

"You are Albion." Said Logan, staring at her. It unnerved her when he did that. He had the same stare of their mother, a piercing haunting sort of stare that stripped you absolutely bare.

Naveena sighed, and changed the subject, "Did you have nightmares too, after what happened in Aurora?"

Logan looked put on, looking down, away from her, with a stare that seemed a thousand yards away.

"Yes," He said, with some finality in his voice. The fireplace cackled again. "I wandered the desert blind for a day, had never felt more helpless… how could I not have nightmares about that, sister?"

Her heart panged, an achy sort of pain that made her body curl in on itself, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"The Darkness, Naveena," Logan said, and this time his eyes settled on her. Her skin crawled. "Is something that stays inside forever."

* * *

Her midsection was getting thicker.

Naveena placed both hands on it, standing naked in front of her vanity. Behind her, Elliot stirred awake, sitting up so slowly it looked nigh painful. She frowned, looking at the reflection with a pensive glare. Her hair was getting longer too, now shoulder-length and curling the slightest bit at the ends. She tucked strands behind her ear.

"You're beautiful." Elliot mumbled from his place on the bed.

Naveena laughed, dry and papery-thin, "I know."

* * *

"_Vous etes une beatue sans egal." _Reaver hissed into her ear, she heard it loud and booming, snaking into her mind and grabbing ahold with spindly fingers. She was pinned beneath him, her breaths coming out in rough chunks hitched by each movement.

"Shut up," She gasped, fingers clawing their way across his back. "And hurry up."

* * *

"Mourningwood will be used as a sewage dump, to cut the cost it would require to build a sewage plant here in Bowerstone."

The Mourningwood Community Member looked affronted, as did his fellows. They howled and cursed and raised angry fists. Naveena crossed her legs, and then uncrossed them as it made her stomach horribly uncomfortable.

"_Enough!" _She yelled, and they quieted immediately, color drawing from their faces. "Tell me this, would you rather live in the filth of my people, or _die?"_

"B-But, _man, _it's _wrong, _all _wrong…"_

"Go. The decision has been made." She said, waving one angry hand towards the exit. The people looked around, at each other and the nobles on the other end of the room, and then back up at her, with varying degrees of both outrage and disappointment in their eyes. Naveena glared down.

They filed out, silent, though their silence spoke volumes.

Reaver clapped, slow and sarcastic, "I _knew _you would make the _correct decision, _Your Majesty!"

"Shut up, Reaver." Snapped Walter beside her.

Reaver shrugged, and tapped his cane on the ground once, twice and a third time. He seemed to be waiting for something.

"Go ensure that the sewage from Bowerstone is siphoned into Mourningwood, will you?" Naveena growled, practically roared. She was in a poor, very foul mood and had no time for games or silly affairs.

Reaver contrived a look of feigned dejection, "Very well, _meurtriere."_

* * *

"These people… I'm so frustrated by them." She said, quietly, as Reaver stripped her of her gown. "They understand nothing, know nothing of what I sacrifice to ensure that they all live—"

"They are nothing in comparison to a _Queen," _Reaver replied, smiling at her, cheeks twisted in that wolfish way. "You should not let the ramblings of mere _people _bother you, _meurtriere." _

"They are my people, Reaver," She said, splayed out on his bed. "I will do what I must."

Reaver tutted, joining her, "You should do what you _please."_

"Like I did with Alden," She asked, sighing. Reaver pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck. "And Bloodstone?"

"Why yes," Reaver purred. "After all, didn't that turn out _spectacularly?"_

"I burned a city full of innocent people."

"They were _not _innocent," Reaver laughed, pressing down on her. "Think of it _this _way, if you will, you killed them to ensure your own survival, your own life!"

"All's fair in love and war?" Sighed Naveena, and then she kissed them.

When they were done, laying in the tangled sheets of Reaver's bed with not a stitch of clothing between them, Naveena put a hand on her stomach and asked, quite tentatively,

"Why are you so sure this child is not yours, Reaver?" She asked, brow furrowed. Naveena shifted slightly, a little closer to the warmth beside her.

Reaver scoffed, "You _insult _me, _meurtriere! _I try very, _very _hard to ensure that something like _that _does not happen."

"That doesn't make the idea impossible." Naveena murmured, her whole body tensing up. She shot him a sideways look, a severe glance. "Don't tell me you aren't even the slightest bit _excited _by the prospect of having a child within the Royal Family."

Reaver was watching her carefully, evaluating her.

She continued, "I'm not an idiot. There are so many ways you can use that against me, hold it over me like the Sword of Damocles. You could _ruin _me, if you wanted to, but you haven't. And for what, I wonder? Gold? Power? Sex?"

Reaver watched her for a very long time, and then snickered, "Ah, _meurtriere, _you know me only too well."

And he leaned in to kiss her.

* * *

She moved the bishop across the board, capturing Logan's rook easily. Naveena palmed the black rook in one hand, letting it fall beside her side of the board with a slight clack.

"Did you ever think it would end up like this?" She asked him, staring hard at the board. "Me as the Queen and you here, just a prince."

"Often." Logan said without a moment's hesitation. "Our mother was not the most loving mother." His knight jumped one of his pawns, a little too close to one of her own pawns. Naveena glanced up at him, her gaze snapping, which he held with his own gaze for a little while.

"Yes," Sighed Naveena, crossing her arms. "I'm aware of that." Her stomach was getting larger, rounder, with each passing week. To say she tried to ignore it would be an understatement, but eventually, like all problems, it grew bigger and bigger and eventually it was just better to face it, head-on.

"Our mother has always favored you," Logan said. "And I am no longer bitter about that. I accept the fact, the thought."

"I think she knew," Naveena replied, quietly, watching as Logan palmed her bishop. "In her own way, of what was to come."

"Perhaps," Logan whispered, his voice tense, like a bowstring. "She was a ruthless woman, our mother."

"She had to be." Naveena chuckled, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "She had _us _as children."

* * *

"I, _love _you can't seriously be thinking about… _eating that?"_

"Elliot," Naveena started, calmly. "If I want to eat pickles and cream, I will eat pickles and cream. "

"Alright, but if it tastes nasty—"

"It won't."

* * *

"I will send a commission of guards to go with you," Naveena said, waddling slightly. Page was trying very hard to match her pace with the other woman's. "Led by Ben Finn, of course."

"_No." _Page groused. The two of them were walking side-by-side, or trying to, as one of them could only do a rather sad little waddle. "Anyone but Finn, I beg of you."

Naveena chuckled, amused, and stopped. Page was giving her the gruffest expression she could manage, which was in its own way quite frightening.

"Ben Finn is the best shot we've got in the army," She said, quietly. Page's expression faltered slightly. "And you're the best arm we've got. Now don't tell me you don't find that to be a powerful, and deadly, combination, especially against Nigel Ferret."

Page let out an extremely exasperated sigh, before rubbing at her forehead, pinching the bridge of her nose and saying, "You're right. But don't expect Finn to return in one piece, Your Majesty."

"Page _please," _Naveena looked at her with equally exasperated eyes. "Just call me Naveena. You've earned the right."

"For having to deal with all this?" Page chuckled, a soft sound that needed to be heard more often. "You bet your ass, Naveena."

"That's better. Now go get Nigel Ferret." Naveena made a slight sad sound. "Wish I could go with you, honestly."

Page nodded, "Yes, me too. It would be nice to have you at my back."

"Like old times?" Naveena laughed. "Ah, now I sound like _Walter. _I feel like I'm aging a year every day."

Page looked at her with warm eyes, and said, "You're not alone, believe me."

To Naveena, those words felt hollow.

* * *

Naveena placed the flowers at the foot of her mother's tomb. They were arranged lilies, orchids and irises, her mother's favorite, with stalks of harestail in between now and then. Her mother had loved harestail, would often hold stalks of it between her fingers wistfully, carefully.

"It's been ten years," She told Elliot, who was beside her in the darkness. He carried a lantern. "But it still haunts me."

"I think," Elliot's voice was hesitant, overly careful. "She wouldn't want you to think about it too much."

Naveena felt familiar tears prick the corners of her eyes, "Maybe. But I… it's just not something you forget easily, you know?"

Elliot put the lantern on the ground beside him, and held her face with both hands, wiping away the coming tears with his thumbs. Naveena let out a gasping, hitching sort of breath, a cross between a sigh and a cry.

"I miss her," Naveen muttered, as Elliot drew her into his arms. "So, so much."

"I know," Said Elliot, a whisper against her shoulder. "I know you do." He was warm, and Naveena leaned into him heavily, breathing in Elliot's scent of spring, and new beginnings. She sniffled slightly, a sad sound that made her feel quite pathetic.

When they emerged from the catacombs, the sunlight blaring down on them as if they were the only things in all the world that the sun could blare down on, Naveena noticed Reaver waiting for her near the top of the stairs, both hat-less and coat-less.

The warmth of the new spring was decidedly powerful, and Naveena didn't blame him for choosing to forgo the uncomfortable heat of his clothes.

"Ah, Your Majesty," Reaver said as the two of them reached the top. Naveena found herself very uncomfortable, and constantly aware of the glare in Elliot's eyes as he looked at Reaver. "I was hoping to find you here! We _do _have business to speak of, after all!"

"I forgot," Naveena lied, glancing at Elliot. Elliot nodded stiffly before retreating back into the Castle. "I'm sorry." She watched his every tense movement out of the garden.

When they were sure it was just them in the garden and no one else, Reaver's gaze slid lazily down at the doors of the catacombs.

"My, it's been ten years…" Reaver muttered, his voice clean and without any real emotion. "I never _did _get to tell our dear _Hero Queen _goodbye, I'm afraid. A shame_, really."_

Naveena bristled slightly, her eyes like chips of ice as she stared at him, "I doubt you really care."

"_Meurtriere, _your dear mother and I were often of the same _mind. _Take what you want so others … ah, well _not exactly _the same line of thought. I stop at take what you want, admittedly."

A flock of bird flew overhead, squawking.

"Why are you doing this today?" Naveena asked, her voice a little more than a waver, a wobble. "I'm not in the mood for anything that comes out of your mouth." Her head tilted down, away, eyebrows pulled down by her own frustration.

"Why, I'm simply telling you the _truth, _Your Majesty. Surely," And here Reaver chuckled. "You would like to hear the truth, the truth as you _know it, _even. My, it isn't like you to _run."_

"I _know, _alright?" Hissed Naveena, her head jerking up. "You don't have to tell me things that I _already know." _

Reaver laughed, a low sort of angry sound. His grin widened, amused by her reaction, "People tend to lie around a _Queen. _Surely you must appreciate the _truth?"_

Naveena said nothing to that except for an angry, near-yelling, "_GO!"_

* * *

Gold glinted within the treasury, piles of it stacked, orderly and neat. Hobson, she supposed, had gone through it again, placed coins in rows and neatened it, made the area cleaner and the rows more precise. To Naveena, it really set in for her just how little they had in the treasury. For her, it made her think of all the people that would die, because in these rows it looked as if there was nothing, a dent maybe in the statistics.

"Thank you, Hobson," Naveena said, her voice the very picture of calm. "I appreciate your haste in tidying up this mess."

"Of _course, _Your Majesty," Hobson replied, his voice a mere guttural purr. "It was my absolute _pleasure!"_

She left Hobson there, her clothes sticking to her, spring-sweat that made her horribly uncomfortable. It was the curse of living in Albion, she supposed.

The winters were unbearably cold and the summers were unbearably humid. Her hair clung to the back of her neck, plastered there. She felt filthy.

She had one of the maids drew her a bath, and Naveena found herself soaking in it minutes later, with nothing but the sound of the morning-birds outside, the gurgle and splutter of the bathwater, and her own thoughts.

She put a hand over her stomach, which was swelling and swelling, and waited. Every now and then she could feel something, a small kick or a little movement, enough to make her jump and flutter with the slightest bit of excitement.

Inside, deep inside, her whole body trembled with fear though. It would be an understatement if she said she wasn't the slightest bit horrified by the prospect, regardless of the whole debacle with Reaver and Elliot and herself, really.

Naveena groaned, and tried to focus on the sweet cool of the water, and the feeling all around her, instead of her own thoughts.

She found Logan waiting in her bedroom when she entered, clothed in new, clean clothes and toweling her hair. He stood when she entered, having taken his seat in one of the armchairs within her room.

"Oh, Logan." Naveena said, surprised. A little delighted. "What is it?"

"I had a dream," He replied, his voice a near whisper. "About the Darkness as well. Last night."

"You did?"

"Yes," Logan gave her a terse, tense nod. "Let us talk in the War Room, sister."

The two went to the War Room, and Naveena took note of every overwrought motion of Logan's body. Every rigid, taut muscle and stiff, jumpy steps. He seemed, to her, incredibly on edge, like a man teetering on the edge of the world by his toes, a balancing act that could end in disaster.

When they reached the War Room, Naveena made sure to pour him a glass of wine.

"It seemed a lot like the dream I had." She said, when Logan described to her his dream. "A great deal like it."

"Yes, and that bothers me." Logan muttered, looking away. He hadn't touched his glass of wine. "The Crawler… do you ever get the feeling, sister, that it has its own claws within you?"

For a first time in a long while, Naveena found herself thinking about what the Shadow Judges had said, about how she had the Crawler's _Mark. _About how the Darkness was deep within her. She bit her lip, suddenly apprehensive.

"Y-Yes." She stuttered, after a moment. "I see what you're driving at, Logan."

He seemed twitchy, practicing familiar tics that she hadn't seen since he was a boy. Biting the inside of his cheek, toying with the edge of his lips, tapping one foot. He seemed to be thinking, turning something over and over in his mind.

"We should be careful," He said after a while, his voice distant, far away, buried in the quagmire of some distant memory. "Lest something else happens to either one of us."

* * *

"We haven't talked about names." Said Elliot, as the two were sitting down for dinner.

Naveena moaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose, "Light, you're right. We do need to think some up."

Elliot speared a few bits of his salad on a fork, picking away olives, which he didn't like, "Well, how about now? We do have time."

"Let's start with girl names." Naveena said, nodding. She chewed on a few pieces of lettuce, thinking. "Delany."

Elliot made a face, "No… Ilona?"

Naveena stuck out her tongue, "Faline."

"Carlotta." More faces.

"Meryl." More tongue.

Elliot groaned, rolling his eyes, "Let's do boys instead."

Naveena laughed, "Alright… Anders?"

Elliot shook his head, "No, too rough. Chase?"

Naveena sighed, "Let's talk about this later." And she chewed on her lettuce some more.

* * *

Naveena shrugged on her clothes, bare feet pleasantly cool against the chill of Reaver's floor. Her body was still mired in sweat, and clothes seemed both uncomfortable and inappropriate at the moment.

"Reaver." She said, quietly.

From his leisurely spot on the bed, Reaver purred, "Hm? Whatever is it, _meurtriere?"_

She thought of the diary she had read, passages which stirred her and bothered her, and one in particular, standing out in stark, clear contrast, _"But I am not he… I am Reaver."_

"I want to ask a rather personal question," She said, and then chuckled, sheepishly. Near nervous. "One I'm afraid may make you rather annoyed." Another chuckle, softer this time, even more apprehensive.

Reaver's eyes narrowed slightly, and his nose crinkled. Unfamiliar mannerisms, unfamiliar thoughts.

"Reaver… it isn't your real name is it?" She asked, softly, quietly, very nervously. Then she laughed. "I… that's a ridiculous question, I'm sorry."

"Well, _meurtriere, _you are certainly not the first to ask!" Reaver replied, chuckling slightly. He stirred and moved, still naked, lacking in modesty of any sort. He looked thoughtful for a moment, as he stuck on arm in the sleeve of a jet-black dress shirt. "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell just as sweet? Ah, so I hear."

"That neither answers my question nor makes any sense." Said Naveena. "Roses always wilt, and never do they smell just as sweet as they did before."

"A fitting description of _people, really, meurtriere." _Reaver replied, sliding buttons between his fingers. "People always wither, and age, and slowly they _die. _With the exception of _myself,_ of course!"

"True." Naveena agreed, holding the front of her clothes together with her hand. She turned a little, to look at him. "But is Reaver not your real name?"

"Perhaps," Reaver quipped. "Perhaps not!" And he smiled at her, a thin sliver of teeth, pearly white and perfect.

"You are," She hissed, eyebrows pulled downward. "The most infuriating man I've ever met!"

* * *

"Alcohol will be banned," Her voice was sturdy, steady. "See to it that everyone in Albion is aware. Send people to dump it into the ocean, put up posters. So on, so forth."

Hobson nodded, a slightly sour expression coloring his face. He gave her a terse, slightly annoyed nod before running off to enact the new law. Naveena scoffed as he left. Hobson was all for the ruination of others' freedom, but when it affected _him _as well he got uppity about it. Sad, but true.

The treasury needed gold. She glanced at the rumination of her funds before leaving, her whole body tense. She put a hand on her stomach. It made her feel a bit better.

* * *

"Sister, I think you should tell Elliot." It was the first thing he said, when they met up for tea in the gardens. Naveena had been chewing a frosted cake, baking the summer air, when he had said that. Naveena had stopped fully, glancing at him, her eyes wide like plates within their hollows. The leaves of the neatly trimmed bushes had been rustled by the wind, as if responding to Logan.

It pulled at locks of red hair, and she tucked them behind her ear, "No." She said, commanded really. Her voice a coarse, rough piece. "I can't."

"Why not?" Logan asked, leaning forward in his seat. He hadn't touched his tea at all, and looked as if he hadn't slept in a decade.

"I don't want to hurt him." She said, softly, though her voice creaked on every vowel.

"And you think not telling him would hurt any less?" Logan growled, hissed really, his lips contorted in a frowned, twisting the scar. "What if your child looks nothing like him? Then what, sister? Do tell me."

Naveena growled back, "It is _none _of your business! I will do what I must, what I want. Perhaps one day, someday, I will tell him. Not now, not when _I'm _hanging by a thread, do you understand?"

Logan recoiled, as if the words had slapped him, and he sighed, frustration echoing in every movement, "You have to, soon. If not now, when? Ten years from now? Twenty? Forty? You cannot let him live a lie."

"It isn't a lie," She lied. "I love him. I _do."_

"If you loved him," Said Logan, his voice so faint it was hard to hear over the wind. "Then why do you persist at this affair with Reaver?"

Naveena opened her mouth, but her jaw seemed to lock up, close, sealed by frosting maybe. "I…"

Logan studied her with a dark gaze. She twiddled her thumbs, closed in on her swelling stomach. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes but she took in a deep, rattling breath, deferred them, concealed them. Crying did nothing, proved only how truly guilty she felt.

"You don't understand at all," She snapped, her own lips twisting now. "You don't understand _anything," _She stood up sharply, sending silverware clattering as she bumped into the table. Her gaze was icy, cold, and every bit as sharp as the knife on the table. "And stop trying to guilt-trip me!"

Logan stood up to stop her as she began to walk away, but she shouldered past him, twisted her wrist out of his grip when he grabbed for it, did that a second time and eventually he seemed to just give up, standing in the gardens beside a marble copy of himself.

* * *

"_Watch us fly into your heart!"_

_The Darkness, again. Waist deep in the endless sea._

"_You have done terrible things… Did you think I wouldn't know? Did you think I would allow it?"_

_Black eyes. Spindly fingers, reaching for her, for her child. Her eyes closed, sightless even._

"_Give in to the Darkness…"_

_This time she did not twist away, she reached too. For black eyes and spindly fingers._

* * *

Naveena sat on the edge of the bed, looking for all the world as though she had died years ago, bags beneath her eyes and skin seemingly so white, pale, pasty. Elliot pressed a hand to her forehead, his face contorted in a look of worry.

"You're sick." He said, quietly, pushing her back down on the bed. He pulled the covers up to her chin. She didn't protest at all, feeling like she'd been dragged through the mud and back. "I'll be right back. Make you some tea."

She spent the whole day in bed, never sleeping. Her eyes felt like lead, but she didn't want to close them. Naveena felt like when she did, maybe the Crawler would find her again. And then what? Who would be Albion's messiah then?

So she stayed, covers pulled over her mouth, and thought. She thought about Logan, and what he'd said. She hadn't so much as glanced at Logan since that day in the gardens, angry at him and frustrated with the idea that maybe, just maybe, he was right. Maybe she was hurting Elliot more by not telling him anything.

When Elliot placed the tea tray beside her – _their – _bed, and turned to leave she had grabbed for his wrist. Weakly, fingers curled slightly around soft skin. He'd looked at her then, worried beyond belief, and for a second Naveena felt she could tell him everything, all of it, and all of it would come tumbling out too fast and he'd be forced to ask her, painfully, if she could repeat all of it because he couldn't understand and—

"Love?" Asked Elliot. He looked tired too, a little pinched around the eyes. Naveena's grip on his wrist twitched. "What is it?"

Her throat closed up, the fleeting moment gone. She smiled, weakly, her insides watery, "Thank you. Could you… stay a while?"

Elliot breathed out a sigh – of relief, exasperation? – and laid down beside her, pulling her into his arms. His hand rested just above her stomach, beneath her breasts. And for a moment, Naveena felt she could pretend that nothing at all was wrong, that everything was as it should be. As it was meant to be, as it should have been.

The moment passed, and in its wake there was nothing except deep, deep ressentiment, a guilt that ate away at her core, at her being.

"Love, love?" Elliot whispered, so soft. "Love, you're crying." He wiped at her cheeks with a satin sleeve. "What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing." She lied, voice hitching. "Nothing a-at all."

* * *

"I have to tell him."

Her stomach was at its largest, the time nearly there. Closer and closer. She could feel it.

She continued, "About us."

Reaver scoffed, "And? Certainly you are aware that I've no care for people's opinion of me? Go ahead, do what you will, _meurtriere. _I shan't stop you!"

"I just thought you should know." She opened the doors of his Manor. Outside, the clouds gathered in swirling, gray glooms. "You deserved to know."

"Oh, of that I've no doubt," Said Reaver, his voice stopping her at the doorframe. "I do deserve quite a great deal."

She slammed the door shut, let it rattle on its hinges.

Outside, Naveena bit her lip so hard it bled.

* * *

"I'm going to tell Elliot." She said at the piano, when Logan had walked in. Her fingers tapped out a familiar song. Greensleeves. _It is a romanticist's hope to think that a monster could love. _Light, how naïve had she been back then? So stupid and foolish. Trampling on other's feelings.

Logan sat down on the piano bench beside her. Her fingers trembled, a wrong note sounded about in the air, rattling around in her head. _Alas my love, you do me wrong._

"Is that what you want to do, sister?" He asked, distantly. Her fingers paused slightly, hesitated. _To cast me off discourteously._

Her tongue felt like a rock in her mouth, "I have to. You were… are… right." _For I have loved you well and long._

"But is this what _you _want to do," He asked, again, his voice as far away and unreachable as ever. "Naveena?"

"Why do you do that?" She hissed. "You say I should do one thing, and then when I _do_ do that thing you suggest I do something else!"

Logan said nothing, his face revealed nothing. _Delighting in your company…_

"I… it doesn't matter what _I _want, regardless of who tells me that that is not true…" Her face looked lost, a child's face. "Because it _isn't. _The people around me, they… they are who matter. And I wish… I don't even know anymore, I really don't. I don't know what I want, or what other people want… Everything, everything's just a giant blur, I mean I try to think of where it went wrong, where everything went wrong. Maybe… Maybe I made the wrong choice. Those people, those protestors… they didn't deserve to die, they didn't but I… Light, am I really this selfish?"

Logan slung an arm around her shoulders, held her close, and whispered, "No."

_These vows you've broken, like my heart… Oh, why did you so enrapture me? Now I remain in a world apart… but my heart remains in captivity… _

* * *

The clock on the wall struck twelve. Midnight. Naveena looked up at it, her whole body encased in what felt like ice. Around her, the War Room seemed horribly unwelcoming. As if it wanted to shun her, eject her from the room, push her out and away to better things. Naveena circled the Map Table nervously, her feet clicking against the floor.

Her whole body felt like it were rebelling against itself. Naveena's stomach seemed to swish, to whirl, and her shoulders were steadied, squared, defensive. Every muscle seemed tense, tough, unbearably painful. The only thing that felt normal at all was her stomach, which she placed a hand on. She could feel her child, moving, churning. As if they too knew something was happening.

Outside, the rain pattered angrily, and there were flashes of lightning. The rumble of thunder echoed everywhere, and the whole Castle seemed to be filled with a horrible, terrible chill. Naveena watched the storm, the twisting shadows of the trees, playing cages on the window. She shivered, the chill traveling down her spine.

Her fingers found the _Red Dragon, _and she played with it, turning it over in her palm. Her mother's pistol. What would she have thought about all this? About her daughter?

When the door opened behind her, Naveena placed it back down on the table, quickly, nearly guiltily. She turned to face Elliot, who was standing in front of the door, pouring in light from the hall. His shadow was long, terribly long on the floor.

He moved quickly to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and touching her forehead.

"Love, you're feverish. You can't stay up this late, you _know that—" _

"Shut up." She breathed, angry. "I wanted… I _have _to talk to you."

Elliot stopped, frozen almost, his face cast in a look of sheer unvoiced annoyance, "You need to rest, for our child."

"It might not be your child, Elliot." She said, quickly, the words tumbling out before she even had a chance to think it through, to focus her thoughts.

_That _made him stop. Elliot seemed grounded, rooted to the spot, his hands still on her shoulders. His face was clear, clean of any sort of emotion. It was blank, a clean slate. His lips were parted, slightly, disbelievingly. A clear crack of black between them. Naveena stared into that.

"_What?" _Elliot asked. His face changed, now. Like a cavern opening up into some great, horribly darkness. His breath rattled in, like the shaking of bones. "What did you say?"

His hands left her shoulders, quickly, like she were a dirty thing, "I'm sorry."

There was a long, long pause. Years seemed to pass. Then centuries.

"You're _sorry?" _Elliot breathed. "_Sorry?"_

"I…"

He slapped her.

Naveena scuttled back, recoiling, caught by surprise. Her head twisted to the side, and she gasped for air, before looking up at him. He had recoiled too, looking horrified, afraid, as if someone had knocked the wind out of him.

He looked away, and then back at her, face angry now.

"I should have…" He started, and then hissed, "Who?"

"None of your business." Naveena said, too quickly.

"It is _exactly my business!" _Elliot yelled. Naveena's eyes widened, she had never heard him yell before. "I can't _believe _this! What did _I _do? Did I not—"

"It's not..." She started, her voice rising as well. "It's not your fault! You think everything is your fault, when it's not!"

Elliot looked outraged, the color rising in his face, "So what? It's _your _fault? What do you want me to believe? I can't… who _are you? _You're not the woman…"

"I am me." Naveena said, spat really. Her voice was shaking, like a branch. Thunder rolled across the land again, lighting up the windows behind her.

"After all of this?" Elliot asked, his voice was getting higher and higher, more shrill. "After everything… I don't even know who the Void you are anymore."

Naveena screamed, "Do you think I haven't thought about this? It's my _fucking fault, _and you deserve so much—"

She stopped. Elliot stopped too, looking horrified.

Naveena clutched her stomach, breathing heavy, laborious. There was a wetness between her legs.

"I…"

Elliot jumped forward, taking her by the shoulders. Their argument was all but forgotten for now. Naveena felt a crunching pain in her abdomen, and she squeezed Elliot's hands, hard. Her eyes squeezed shut.

It was time.

* * *

**In regards to this chapter's title.**

**The Tower tarot card is a card which signifies a war between lies and truth. The Tower itself is meant to signify a structure built on lies, which is struck by the lightning flash of truth. It symbolizes anything that we believe to be true to later be proven false.**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	36. Blackbird

Avarice

Chapter 36: Blackbird

_Should I lie_

_Should I cry_

_Should I fly or die?_

_I think it's time to stop pretending pain_

_My Warrior – And One_

* * *

The pain was unbearable.

It was like having a white-hot hammer forced down her throat, shoved really. Her whole body felt like it were rebelling against itself, pulling itself inside out, so that the inside of her could be laid bare for all to see. She was distantly aware of the people within the infirmary, though their presences seemed to come and go like apparitions, ghosts really. She wondered if they were even really there.

Mary, the nurse who had stitched up Reaver all those months ago, was down by her legs. Her words were loud, insistent, a buzzing like a headache, _push push push._

Naveena's voice sounded distant even to her own ears, like she were hearing someone yell from the summit of Mistpeak. It felt as if she weren't really speaking, but listening to herself speak. Amidst the different spectrums of pain, this seemed to her as natural as breathing.

Those apparitions came and went - _push, push – _She could see Elliot, at her side, face drawn and pinched as if he had been through the Void and back, his hands curled and clammy within her own. His eyes were wide and afraid, and his lips moved with words she couldn't understand but could see. _Sorry, sorry, love, sorry, please—_

Whatever for, she wanted to ask. It was all her fault, wasn't it? All her fault, yes. All her fault.

_Love, sorry, okay, child—_

Be quiet, please, she wanted to say.

_Push, push, push._

Of all the things she could've thought about during this, she thought of her mother. Sometimes she could see her, around the edges of the bed, a shadow of a woman she had once admired so much. Blood seemed to be everywhere on her, though. Concentrated on the hands. Sparrow would look at her with those eyes, the eyes which were a reflection of her own, and would whisper, so, so gently,

"My, the mess you've made for yourself, Veena." And the smile that graced her lips was cold and every bit one of disapproval.

Yes, yes she had made a mess, hadn't she?

The pain was getting worse. Her eyes pricked with tears, and her hands fisted the cold, white cloth of her bed beneath her. Elliot was at her shoulder, his whispered words loud and booming in the shell of her ear. _Sorry, sorry, fault, mine—_

No. Her fault. Only hers. _Push, push, push—_

Logan was the one who most resembled a ghost, a shadow that lurked in the corners of the room. His face dour and set, his gaze stern and his bottom lip chewed to ruin. He never looked at her. She wanted him to look. _Look at what you convinced me to do!_

She gasped, screamed and yelled. Distant gasps, distant screams, distant yells. Her skin felt like it had been lit on fire. Maybe it had. Situational irony, from beyond the grave. _Don't let Reaver stray you from the path!_

_Push!_

When it all seemed over, her world was plunged into black.

* * *

Naveena woke up to silence. Pure, unadulterated silence. Her body felt heavy, like she were weighed down by a ton of bricks. She felt herself stir, her legs twitch and her toes wiggle. Her entire body ached, the feeling of old pain. Her eyes opened, slightly, narrowly. The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding escaped her lips.

"Your Majesty…?" Asked a familiar voice. It took her a moment to place a name to it.

"Mary…" She rasped. Her throat burned. "Water…"

"Right, of course." A few moments of silence brought her a glass. Naveena sucked it down eagerly, feeling as though she hadn't had a drink in years. As if all her life she'd been wandering the desert, parched, with a tongue like the sand. Naveena wasn't sure she'd ever been happier to see water in her entire life.

The glass shook in her hands, and she asked, rather shakily, "Mary… my—"

"Hush," Said the nurse, taking the glass from her hands. "Hush, child."

"My child—"

Mary looked pained, as though something had been drawn out of her, "There were… complications, Your Majesty."

Complications. The word drew through her like a knife. "Complications? My… are they—"

"You had twins." Said Mary. The older lady sat in a seat next to her, fisted the crimped edges of her dress. "One of them… did not survive the night."

Naveena felt as though something inside of her had died. As if something deep within had crawled up and died within her. She sat up, and all at once her throat felt again horribly dry, like she were still deep within the desert.

"Why?" She asked, and it was all she could ask. The only word she felt she could really say. "Why?"

"Premature birth," Said Mary, her voice as gentle and soft as it could possibly be. "The complications of it, especially during twinning… often, the results are dire indeed. You are truly lucky that even one—"

"A boy," Naveena asked, quietly. "Or a girl?"

Mary's face looked drawn in on itself, the wrinkles of her face opening up to some dark chasm. "A boy. A very fragile little boy."

"I want to see him." Naveena said, her voice raspy, rough. Her throat stung. "Please."

Mary's frown deepened, and Naveena's eyes were unfocused on the wall ahead of her. She felt as though she were falling apart, threads of her pulled away and carried into the wind, scattering to the four edges of the world. Forgotten. How she wanted so very much to be forgotten, to be a nameless face in a nameless crowd.

"Your Majesty—" Mary began to protest.

"Please."

Mary drew herself up from the chair and left. Naveena watched her go, watched the way her thin shoulders were squared and her body tightened, uncomfortable. There was something in the gait that bothered Naveena so.

Moments later, Elliot appeared, with a bundle wrapped in his arms. Naveena refused to look at him, but he pressed the boy into her arms, and she held the boy gently, delicately. As if moving just a bit would snap off the baby's arms.

He was a quiet, fragile little thing. He had big, baby-blue eyes. Her eyes, Naveena thought, though she wondered if the color would change as the months passed. The boy was bald, no hair yet, and was decidedly pink. A bright, shiny, nearly sickly sort of pink that made Naveena's heart sink.

No name. Not yet. She didn't think she could bring herself to name the little bundle in her arms.

"Elliot." She said, her voice a whip. Anger bubbled inside her, a frustration pent up so much that the only thing she could do, could say was, "Get out."

Elliot stirred beside her, his face hurt, his eyes wide, "I—"

"Just go," She whispered, and then spat out, as if the word itself were poison, _"Murderer."_

Elliot stood, looming over her. She didn't dare look at him, glance at him. After a while, Elliot just gave out a shaky, deflating sort of sigh, hitched by something… tears, maybe? But he left. It was just her now. Her and her child, her child without a name.

The boy gurgled, curled fingers around her pinky when she showed him it. Naveena wasn't sure if she had ever seen anything quite so beautiful in her entire life.

After a moment, with those fingers curled around her own, in the silence of her own company, Naveena finally allowed herself the leisure of weeping.

* * *

It was raining. A light drizzle, accompanied by thick black clouds that promised further thunderstorms. Naveena could feel the icy fingers of the rain slipping down her back, though she felt too numb to even shiver. Beside her, Elliot was the very model of a statue. He wouldn't even hold her hand.

The priest had been brought from Oakfield, a practitioner of the Light. His words were low and droned, and Naveena barely even heard him. The twin had been a boy, even more fragile than her nameless son. She couldn't look at the boy for more than a few moments before squeezing her eyes shut and turning away. The sight had made her stomach churn, had made her sick.

Logan, who was on the other side of her, whispered something in her ear that she couldn't understand. The words were soft, comforting and meaningless.

Walter was somewhere off to the side, and Naveena thought she had glimpsed Page a few times. An elusive figure, that Page. Like a shadow.

They buried her dead child in a small gold box, one that was barely any larger than the full length of her forearm. He was to be buried with the rest of her family in the catacombs, the first to go after her father. Naveena imagined one day that there would be so many tombs within. Who would go next? Her? Elliot? Logan, even? Her living son? Surely whatever god existed within the great expanse of the sky was not that cruel.

Still, the thought made her heart sink and her stomach fill with bile. Her shoulders shook in the rain, and chills she'd been holding back seemed to rack her entire body. She fell to her knees, and Logan moved down beside her immediately, along with Elliot. The priest stopped mid-sentence.

"I'm okay." She muttered, fast and quick when the priest kneeled in front of her. "Please… just continue the service."

The priest shot her a strange, odd look but did as she asked. When he finished, with that same sentence that all funerals seem to end with, "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust." Naveena could feel the tears rolling down both sides of her cheeks.

The rain seemed to pick up. Naveena watched as the priest lifted the gold box, her eyes leveled at him, and watched as he turned to the looming shadow of the catacomb. He disappeared, and so did her son.

Elliot moved quickly, shouldering past her, never once looking up at her. It left just her and Logan. She couldn't see Walter anywhere, and she looked for him solemnly. She didn't want to look at Logan, not right now. Not ever, maybe. The rain was making her hair wet, plastering bangs to her forehead.

"Sister." She heard Logan say. Naveena stared straight ahead, at the buckles of Logan's clothes.

"It's over, between Elliot and I." She said, simply, with a voice that seemed so incredibly _detached. _Like it hadn't even come from her at all. "I've lost a son, a husband, and soon I may even lose an entire kingdom."

"You will not lose," Said Logan, reaching for her, pulling her tight into a hug. "I promise it."

"Lying is wrong, Logan." She told him, wrapping her arms around him.

* * *

Naveena sat on the edge of her bed, away from Elliot. She didn't deign to watch him pack his things, and not a word was said between them the entire time. The silence itself seemed unbearable, long and stretching and near interminable, but she allowed it to continue, wanted it to continue because there was nothing she felt she could _say._

There was the snap of one of Elliot's bags being closed, and his shoes swam into view as he stood in front of her.

"You're leaving our son." She said, quietly. "You're not hurting me, you're hurting _him _now, don't you understand?"

"He isn't my son," Elliot replied, his voice cracking. A mere whisper. "I _know _that."

"You don't know that." Naveena spat. "How can you even _say _that?" The feet in front of her shifted their weight restlessly.

There was a click on the nightstand beside her bed, and Naveena looked up just to see Elliot's fingers leave the wedding ring on the surface, a slight sliver of gold against deep mahogany. She stared at it, and felt her heart break entirely then, as if it were the final straw. The break didn't seem clean at all.

"I'm leaving, Naveena." Elliot said, finally, his voice so incredibly hurt that it felt like a whip to Naveena. "And you can't make me come back this time."

And he left with his bags over his shoulders, and Naveena didn't even watch him go.

* * *

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	37. Broken Things

Avarice

Chapter 37: Broken Things

_You have lost too much love_

_To fear, doubt and distrust_

_(It's not enough)_

_You threw away the key_

_To your heart_

_Gotye – Heart's A Mess_

* * *

Naveena held the squalling, nervous baby in her arms with the same kind of delicacy one would hold a glass statue. Tight, unyielding and close to her, as if letting go meant destruction itself.

"I'm sorry, baby," She said to the tiny boy. He blinked up at her with big, blue eyes. "I'm so very sorry."

The baby gurgled as if in reply. The door to her quarters opened gently, and Naveena felt as though she knew who it was without even having to look.

"Go away, Logan." Naveena whispered, her voice a mere waver.

"My, confusing me with your oh-so-very dour brother?" Reaver tutted in the doorframe. "For shame, _meurtriere, _for shame."

Naveena held her baby boy even tighter, feeling at that moment extremely vulnerable, as though all the wounds she had or would have ever received were on display for the deviant's gaze. She swallowed the knot in her throat.

"Reaver." She said, breathed really.

"Indeed, it is _I!" _

"You are a sorer sight to see than even Logan right now." Naveena said, looking down at the ground with extremely empty eyes. The area of the bed beside her dipped as Reaver added his weight to it.

"Well," Said Reaver, and at that moment his voice seemed incredibly gentle. Deceptively soft. "I am certainly not going anywhere anytime soon."

Naveena replied, her voice pointed, needly, "You have nothing to say. _You've _never lost a child."

She could feel Reaver's body beside her tighten, as if the words had struck him, or something deep within. Naveena's heart sank. The words were cruel, and angry, and vicious, and she felt petty for even saying them.

"Perhaps not," Reaver said, and his voice held a certain kind of clip to it, as if the words he wished to say had died on his lips. "Certainly that doesn't mean I do not…" He searched for a word. _"Empathize _with your situation."

Naveena sneered, her lips pulled back, but dropped it when the baby within her arms reached for the top buckles of her garments, gurgling as he did so.

"A quiet little whelp," Reaver observed. "Certainly a _blessing, _if nothing else."

"It is a _blessing," _Naveena spat. "That he is alive at all."

"Then," And here, Reaver's voice held just a hint of firmness. "You should take your blessings as they are, as they come."

Naveena snorted, her head hanging low, "And who are you to speak of _blessings?"_

Reaver looked at her then, with fierce, wild eyes that she hadn't seen since their encounters within Bloodstone. Naveena froze, pulling her child close, very close to her.

Reaver's voice was a dangerous, deceptive purr, "I know more of blessings than you ever _shall, vous putain chienne folle."_

Though she did not understand the words, the meaning behind them, the sheer antipathy in Reaver's voice was enough to alert her that he had said something _incredibly _insulting.

"Oh, you consider what you did to Oakvale," She couldn't stop herself from speaking, from saying anything. "To _Sibyl, _a blessing?"

Reaver froze up, and the sheer pain that flashed in his eyes was painful even to her, "You know nothing."

"I know more than you ever will," Said Naveena, her voice fast and rough and rushed. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. "I know what it means to love, and to lose, and to feel real _pain. _Do you think you're the only one who has _ever _suffered loss?"

"Ah," Said Reaver, and his voice held all sorts of threats beneath it. "Do _you _believe you are the only one?"

Naveena gasped, her breath catching on everything inside her throat as the tears fell, rolling, fat on her cheeks. The baby in her arms began to cry as well, squall and fuss in her arms. Reaver gingerly, gently, lifted the baby from her arms into his own. The baby quieted, if only for a moment.

The Queen's laugh was hoarse, rough-edged, "He likes you."

"Well," Reaver whispered, looking at the squirmy thing in his arms as though he wished it were a bottle of wine or a chunk of gold. "Best not get too attached."

Naveena chuckled, humorlessly, and then said, in a voice that seemed a near-whisper, "The Darkness is coming, soon."

"Do you believe that you are ready, _meurtriere?" _Asked Reaver.

"Of course not." Naveena replied. "I don't think we'd ever be ready to face something like the Darkness. Not now, not a thousand years from now, not _ever."_

"Ah, well, most penultimate battles against the evil forces of the Void seem to go that way," Reaver laughed, shifting on the bed next to her. He cradled the child in his arms. "Or so it seems."

"If this were a story," Naveena muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Then all would go well and we would win, wouldn't it? We wouldn't have to worry about even the _thought _of losing."

"Unfortunately this isn't quite a story, is it?" Asked Reaver. "And you, my dear, are not quite a hero."

"A Hero, yes," Said Naveena wryly. "A _hero, _however, I am not quite so sure."

Reaver stood, handing the babe back to her. He made a move to leave, but Naveena's voice stopped him.

"Reaver, wait."

Despite everything that he was, Reaver stopped. He turned his head to look at her, on the bed with a baby in her arms, looking at him with such a _desperate _look, so afraid and so tearful and so much _like Sibyl _that he actually had to stop, had to look at this woman as if he were seeing her for the first time.

"Reaver, _please," _She said, her voice cracking. "Please stay. Just this once."

He moved towards her, sat beside her and let her cry into his shoulder, let her ruin the expensive fabric with her tears and let her hold the child between them.

Reaver felt nothing, just a deep gaping emptiness where his heart used to be.

"_Thank you." _Were the words she whispered, deep into his chest, muffled so much that he barely heard them, as if they hadn't been there at all.

In the end, at night when he was in her bed and the child in his crib, Reaver knew what he was going to do.

He didn't care if it hurt Naveena, not at all. He was Reaver, after all. He did what he wished.

It didn't matter to him who got hurt because of it.

* * *

The dawn was pink, with great bursts of gray inlaid with the clouds.

"Sister," Said Logan, behind her, as Naveena looked out the window of the War Room. "Everything will be alright."

"I find that hard to believe," Naveena replied gravely, holding her little baby boy tight to her chest. The baby slept peacefully in her arms. "The Darkness at our heels, the people rioting in the streets, my husband gone, my family ripped apart… pardon me, brother, if I'm not feeling exactly optimistic about the world in general these days."

Logan sighed, and it was the kind of sigh – Naveena felt, at least – that you'd give a child whom you were particularly disappointed in.

He chose to change the subject, "You haven't named your child yet, have you?"

"The name will come to me," Naveena said, with resignation heavy in her tone. "In time."

Logan watched Naveena, and she could feel his gaze on the back of her neck like two hot coals. A burning sensation that got beneath her skin, made her feel terrible and angry all at once, a torrent of emotions that raged within.

"The commoners say it's ill luck to not name a child."

"At this rate, Logan," Naveena spat, and her child woke in her arms. "My luck can't possibly get any worse."

The baby cried, and Naveena winced, as if slapped by the sound. Logan walked up beside her, reached out for the child and Naveena, leveling a dangerous look at Logan, handed the boy to Logan.

He began, soft, "_Down by the reeds, down by the reeds…"_

Naveena recognized the song. Felt her heart well up horribly in her chest, a swelling that made the back of her throat sting. She leaned in close to Logan, let in a shaky breath and sang, slightly offkey,

"_A twisted path leads…"_

The corners of Logan's lips twisted in what was almost a smile, _"To banshees who breathe out… a cold winter's breeze…"_

And the child quieted.

* * *

"Three days, until a whole year's passed." Walter said, to no one in particular. Naveena was on the throne, leaning back leisurely, almost slovenly, though her face was cast in a nonplussed expression. Her eyes were narrow, and her fingertips trailed a gentle line over her lips as she thought.

Beneath her, Ben and Walter stood.

"We've got four million gold pieces in the treasury," Ben said, optimistically. "I mean, that has to count for _something _right?"

Naveena nodded, "We can't save everybody. This, I know. But if we can save at least over half…"

Walter cursed, "_Balls. _First the revolution, and now this. Albion's going to have a tough time rebuilding, Your Majesty."

"It can be done, though." Naveena replied, and she stood up from the throne. "Logan, and I can both devise a plan of attack. _We _know the Darkness better than most. If, perhaps there is a weakness… something exploitable…"

"Right." Ben interjected, grinning. "Clever idea there, Your Majesty." From his tone, Naveena couldn't judge if that was a compliment, or an insult. It was probably both. That was just how Ben was.

"All I do know," And Naveena could feel her mouth grow dry. "All I ever will know, or ever shall know is this: We have to win. For me, for my son, for all of Albion. Losing isn't an option."

"Oh, _that's _pretty obvious." Ben chortled.

"Shut up, Ben." Walter growled, shooting the younger man an angry look.

Naveena laughed, softly, a small snort. She walked past Walter and Ben, muttering a quick, "Dismissed."

Her feet took her to Bowerstone Industrial, and from there, the Orphanage.

Naveena stood there, in the courtyard, and simply let her memories roll out in front of her. It was as if she could _see _them, _feel _every thought and emotion unraveling before her like it were a physical thing of sorts. She could feel Elliot's breath on her lips, and a whispered question in the shell of her ear.

"_Don't you have something to ask me, love?"_

Naveena knelt in the courtyard, in the shadow of an Orphanage that was being renovated and dug with her fingers. Deep into the earth, a shallow grave of sorts. The ring tumbled from her fingers easily, carefully, rolling into the mud and the dirt. It glinted when it caught the sun, and in its own way became a blinding thing that was hard to look at or even recognize.

She moved the dirt back over it, and stood, staring down at the shallow grave of a thing that should never have died. Her hands felt filthy, the white glove sullied.

And then she left.

* * *

And the Darkness came.

* * *

**The next chapter will be very, very long. And it is also the penultimate chapter, I am so very sorry to say!**

**Feedback is appreciated~!**


	38. War

Avarice

Chapter 38: War

_So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,  
For peace and trust can win the day despite all of your losing._

_Immigrant Song – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross_

* * *

The Road to Rule was filled with Darkness. It dripped from every fogged area, fell into the endless chasm below. It poured and oozed from opened and unopened chests, squelched beneath Naveena's pajama shoes as she walked. It dripped from above – a hellish sort of rain.

At the end, there was her Castle, distorted and blurry, like an oil painting left out in the rain to warp and distend. And at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by black ooze, was Theresa.

"I thought you abandoned me, Seer." Naveena said, shoulders squared like a warrior. Theresa shifted from foot-to-foot, hands pulling at her fingers in front of her. She looked – though she had the strangest of faces, a face like a mask slipped over to hold in her emotions – anxious. Like someone who'd been chased and stalked over and over. "I didn't quite live up to your _expectations."_

Theresa searched her face, with those blind eyes and, not for the first time, Naveena wondered how blind the 'Blind Seer' truly was.

"Yes." Theresa said, in the breathy tone of hers. "That is what I said, was it not, princess?"

Black dripped. A drop of it caught on the side of Naveena's cheek, and she swiped it away with some urgency. It reeked – and reek was the right word for it, indeed – of something tangy and more metallic. Something akin to – but not quite – blood.

"Fates change." Theresa continued. "They change, and meld, and move all around. Albion's fate has come out of the darkness. Slowly, carefully, eventually."

Naveena let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in, "And me?"

"You have always been in the Darkness, princess." Said Theresa, with lack of care. "Your mother knew it, as did I."

"I…" Naveena paused, felt her tongue dry up and the words within die.

"The Darkness was always your fate." Theresa inclined her head forward, a nod. "You were born into it, you lived to face it."

"So, what?" Naveen found something within her to speak. "Everything that's happened – the people I've met, the relationships I've created – it doesn't matter? It's… never mattered?"

"It never does, princess."

The ooze crawled over the half-bared skin on her feet. She could feel it slime and slink its way over her, and Naveena nearly clawed at it.

"What was I, Theresa?" Naveena asked. "Was I just a tool for some greater good of yours?"

Theresa seemed to stare at her, with empty eyes. Naveena felt something sharp in her chest, a lancing pain that hurt deeply and straight to her heart. There was a long pause filled only by noise of black ooze as it slowly ate away and engulfed the Road to Rule.

"I have only ever served the purposes of Albion." Theresa said, finally. "Your mother knew this, and accepted it."

"What gives you the right to decide what our greater good is?" Naveena asked. "What _my _purpose is? What are you going to do to _my _son, when his time comes?"

"Your son is meant for great things, princess." Theresa paused again, whether to collect her thoughts or to edge out some dramatic overtone. "He is a Hero."

She could hear the capital in that word, and hated it. Because, to her, Hero seemed synonymous with so many other things like Alone, and Dead, and even Forgotten. Because that's how Sparrow ended up. And, it seemed, that was her own fate as well.

"No." Naveena said, angrily. "I don't want him to be a Hero."

"Then you bring the destruction of Albion all around."

Naveena shook her head, "But if it means he can be happy, then it's worth it."

"You're a selfish woman, princess." Theresa said.

"And that makes you a hypocrite." Naveena glared, eyes ferociously blue. "But we both know that, don't we?"

There was a long, pregnant silence. Something close to a smile pulled at Theresa's mouth, amusedly.

"The Darkness is here," Theresa said. "You've prepared yourself the best you could—"

"Which still wasn't enough." Interrupted Naveena, sourly.

"Now is not a time to dwell on such things, princess. " Theresa retorted, calmly. "The Darkness is _upon us."_

Naveena could feel the weight of the ooze as it crawled up her leg, trying to drag her down. The memory of what had happened in Shadelight pulled around her brain, dragging it to the surface. She could remember the helplessness she felt, the words of the Crawler as they echoed about the inside of her head.

Theresa only smiled – and that was it.

* * *

Naveena awoke in a cold sweat, and reached out from someone that wasn't there. That would never again be there, for as long as she lived.

And it was all her own fault.

* * *

Reaver stood next to Kalin around the Map Table, with a bored look on his face. Which, of course, marked him as different among the group that stood around the Map for the rest of them had worried, terse looks. But Reaver, who had lived through various scenarios in which the people of Albion had thought their doom upon them, saw no real threat. In actuality, he could have cared less what happened to the people of Albion.

He was here simply because he was _required – _and wasn't that the _truth? – _to make an appearance. Caring was not required, of course, so he didn't subject himself to the niceties of such things. He lent a small part of his focus lazily onto Naveena, onto the bags beneath her eyes and the hollow look within them.

Page was the first to speak, to fill the tense silence with something _other _than silence, "A _quarter _of the population… by the _Light—"_

Naveena's eyes drew up, her lips tightened, "Lamenting it," She started. "Will not bring back the dead. We have to fight for the living now." She glanced at Walter and continued, "Is the army prepared—"

"_Two million dead," _Page breathed, looking taken aback. It nearly made Reaver roll his eyes. "And you're—"

This time, Ben interrupted, "Page. Don't… _really."_

But Naveena answered that, in a sharp, cutting sort of voice, "It is _my fault. _I am aware of that. If you think that I am _not, _for even one moment , thinking about the _loss _that Albion has suffered… then you're a greater idiot than I've taken you for!" She glared. "But I will _not, _for even a single minute, spend the remaining hours moping while countless others _die!"_

The room was quiet, painfully silent, and lightning seemed to crackle between the two women that stared one another down. Naveena broke off the glare, returning her gaze to the Map, fingers clenched hard around the raised edge, deep into the grain of the wood as if she'd been rooted there.

Kalin, from beside Reaver, spoke up: "The sentries have placed the Darkness just on the edges of the Millfields, Your Majesty."

Reaver spied the way Naveena's fingers dug even deeper, the way her back seemed to stiffen. She seemed to be holding her breath, like time had been freezing up for her.

She narrowed her eyes and said, "We need to keep a small force within the Castle." A light pause, like she were waiting on some sort of reaction. "For the Prince." Her voice had a thin, wheezy quality to it.

Naveena continued, after a brief moment, "We will have to go through the city on three sides. Not to _attack _this time," She smiled a little. "But to defend."

Walter spoke up, gruffly, "Right. We need to prepare the armies, Your Majesty. They'll be on Bowerstone in a matter of hours."

Naveena nodded, and sighed, "Of course. This council is dismissed. Everyone should be in their respective areas when the Darkness hits Bowerstone, for we fight, or we die."

"Dying's no option." Walter grunted.

A small smile quirked on Naveena's lips, "No. Of course not."

Everyone but Reaver slowly filed out, tension in every muscle, for the day they'd all feared had finally come. Not without cost, of course not, for war never came without cost.

Naveena noticed that he lingered and asked, "What?"

"My, such _hostility." _Reaver feigned a chill. "The temperature's even gone down a few degrees!"

Naveena glared at him from across the Map Table and hissed, "I don't have time for this. Either you've got something to say or you don't."

Reaver looked lazily at her, this woman that had twisted her way into his daily life somehow, this girl that was Sparrow's daughter and replied, "Surely you don't blame yourself for the – _ah- unfortunate _deaths of these… _people?"_

Naveena looked at him with widened eyes, "Why, Reaver. I wasn't aware you _cared."_

"As much as I'd like to see these people washed away by the torrent of war…" Reaver gave a little shrug. "Well, it wouldn't be very good for _me, _yes? One surely cannot make a profit from the _deceased."_

"Maybe you're just not using your _imagination."_ Supplied Naveena, sarcastically.

He shot her one of those terribly cocky and amused smirks, and replied, "Oh, I can _certainly _use my imagination… but really, what use is there in a world without people?"

"Is this personal _growth _I see?" Naveena smiled only a little, in a cautious way. "Reaver, your _heart _is showing!"

Reaver's eyes flickered with something that seemed both dismayed and disgusted and said, "What heart? I've left that in Oakvale, Your Majesty, centuries ago."

"I'm more inclined to believe you never had one at all." Replied Naveena, and there was something insidious in her voice, poisonous in the way she spat out those words. "How do _you _feel, Reaver? Knowing the pain you've caused in my life, here? Knowing what you've done to me, to my husband-"

"From what I hear, he is your husband no longer." Reaver's smirk was stiff, and it cut like a blade into Naveena's heart.

"He will always be my husband." She said, softly. "For at least he loved me."

"Is that what you expected from me?" Asked Reaver, faux-gentle, moving in towards her. Honing in, a predator seeking out prey. "Love?"

Naveena paused, and the silence seemed to stretch on for a thousand years. And then she said, with all the dignity she could muster in her voice, "I'm not entirely sure what I expected. And I'm a fool for it."

And she turned, facing the open doors, facing the tension that had insinuated itself into every muscle, and left him. She left Reaver, who stayed in the War Room, who looked after her as she left.

* * *

Naveena leaned down, against the crib, to look at her son. Dark hair was growing at his scalp, thin and downy, and the way he looked up at her – with eyes that were her own – made everything fall into place. Like a puzzle with the outer frame, just waiting to have all the pieces filled in, to fall into place and create something complete. Something _whole._

"I want you to know something too." She said, and the nameless boy of hers was wide-eyed and gurgling. "Before I go out there."

He played with his toes, pulling at them, throwing off his blanket. Naveena fixed it for him, and he gave a slight high-pitched whine in protest.

"I might not come back." She continued, touching the child's face. It was soft beneath her fingers. Everything about him was soft, innocent. She tried not to imagine what would happen in the years coming – if maybe her son would lose his innocence, much like she did. If maybe he would be pulled into something far greater than himself.

The child was startlingly silent, then. Like he'd understood.

"I'll try. I will try, as hard as I can, to come back. To win this." Naveena supplied. "But I can't promise it. I've already broken too many promises, and maybe that makes everything I'm saying… not worth two gold coins."

Naveena took in a deep, harsh breath, thin between her lips, "But I have to come back, for you."

She paused, feeling a knot balling up in the back of her throat, "You're my _son. _So what does it matter if Elliot is gone and maybe…" She paused, again, then wet her lips. "Maybe even Reaver is gone? In the end, does something like that really _matter? _You're _my _son. I never… I never needed Elliot, or even Reaver, in the first place. Without them, I'm still _me. _I can still _fight."_

There was a small, quiet moment, something with seemed nothing at all like a quiet moment. It was… reverent in nature. Nigh ceremonial, in fact.

"I'm still a _Hero, _right?" A small sort of smile pulled at her lips, quirking almost. Like she'd been afraid to smile at all. "Yes. Yes, that's right. All these things that have happened, all that's occurred… I must move past it, must become something greater than it. I have to bury these things."

Naveena leaned forward, chest pressed against the edge of the cradle and kissed the forehead of her child.

And then, when she left the rooms. There was Logan, waiting for her.

"The battle is about to begin, sister." He said, quietly. There was something unbearably tenuous about his voice, something that made her feel for him all the more, made her heart ache and pain with no real reasons as to why.

"Yes," Her response felt numb in her own mouth. "I know."

They stared at one another for a long while, and Logan then said, "You did the best you could, sister."

"My best?" Naveena looked at him, feeling older than her twenty-three years. "I think not. So many _people—"_

"Did you think you could save everyone? In _your _condition? With all the events that have happened over the past year?" Logan gave her a pointed look, something that felt physical, like an sword or a spear. "With the nightmares that have tagged at your heel?"

Naveena joked, "Would you like the throne back after all this, Logan? I have no _idea _how you managed to last five years on the damn thing."

"I'm not the sort of leader that Albion needs right now." Logan replied. "I never was."

"Yeah, you're right." Naveena closed her eyes, then opened them again. "I just want you to know, that no matter what happens, you were the best brother I could have ever asked for. You're stubborn, and impossible, and you treat me like I'm still a child, but I am so glad, so happy that I have you."

Logan looked uncomfortable, looking down, away from her, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." Said Naveena. "Just get ready for what is going to come."

"I've been preparing myself for the past five years," Logan said, looking at her, sternly. She felt like a child again, under that gaze. "Don't you dare think I've not been preparing myself."

"Show," Was her retort. "Don't tell."

And the two siblings went to war.

* * *

"_The light in your eyes offends us! Let it go out!"_

Her hammer swung true, and it was pleasing to watch the way the shadow's head caved in, fluidly, like it were made of water. She could feel Logan beside her, close, and saw him out of the corner of her eye as he drew himself forward, stabbing his own enemy.

There were many of these foul creatures, but they were a team. Something that the Darkness could fear.

"We have to find the Crawler!" She yelled out to Logan, pulling out her gun. It took a few shots for one of the shadows to dissipate. "If we kill—" She swung her hammer forth with a hiss between her teeth. "The leader, we kill the army!"

She could hear the yells of her people, everywhere. Screams and bangs and pops. Several of the guard surged past her, toting rifles and fierce expressions. And, with all of this, the world around seemed to slowly _lose _something – something that gave a glow to the surroundings. Life, maybe.

Logan's head drew back, and there was something wild in his eyes, terrible and dark, "Yes." He said. Blood welled from a wound on the side of his head.

Naveena nearly moved to him, but paused, taking notice of her surroundings now. Logan seemed to see what she saw, for his eyes widened and his whole body _tensed, _like a bowstring being pulled gripped the handle of his sword even tighter, white-knuckled.

"They're on the move." Naveena noted, her voice feeling very thin.

Logan looked at her, pinning her with his gaze, "Sister—"

But she ran, bolting, pushing past him with a hammer on her back. Logan cried out something she couldn't hear – muffled as it was by yells and screams and the sound of people throwing water on fires – because she saw, she _saw _the direction that the Darkness moved in, the way the Crawler saw fit to _ruin _her.

In the distance, Bowerstone Castle loomed like something out of a nightmare, near black in the shadows. The streets of Bowerstone Market were deserted, save the occasional civilian pushing themselves deeper into shadows as she passed. As if that would make them disappear at all.

"_Run, run little Hero!" _The Crawler's voice felt like it came from _within, _arching through her skull like electricity. There was something sickening about that voice, something that made her want to vomit. _"We know what lies in that selfish shell of yours! We know all the darkness that lies within you, all that you try to hide!"_

Naveena ran, and ran, and ran towards the Castle. Logan pursued her, and from behind Walter cried out a curse as they broke from the formation. At the sloping hill which led into the Castle District, Logan caught up, snatching Naveena by the wrist, holding her there. She whipped around to face him, looking wild and untamed in her terror - an animal backed into a corner.

"Sister—"

"It _knows," _She hissed. "It knows my son is in here. It's bringing them here—"

"To bring _you _here!" Growled Logan, gripping her arm harder.

"I can't just let the Crawler move here," Naveena whispered, her voice strenuous. "Not without… _you've seen it Logan, _you know what it's like. You can't just think I'll…" She stopped, her throat drying up, closing in on itself.

Logan said, in a voice that was dry and expressionless and just _cold, _"People die. You, me, our mother, the people of Albion…" He leaned forward and whispered, half-gentle, "Your _son."_

She pulled her arm out his grasp, wrenched it, "No!"

She disappeared into the Castle District, breaking free of Logan's grasp. And he bolted after her again, chasing her down, his heart beating wildly in his chest as he did. He could hear, amidst the sounds of war, footsteps from behind and he was surprised to see Reaver, running after him.

He vocalized his surprise, "Reaver!"

Reaver ran past him, and Logan was surprised at how quickly the man could move, and he yelled, "No time to chat, dear Logan! We've a Queen to catch, lest she does something incredibly stupid!"

And the two ran after her, hot on her heels.

* * *

**Alright, I lied. This actually isn't the penultimate chapter. However, before any of you yell at me, I AM SO DAMN SORRY THAT SORRY ISN'T ENOUGH.**

**I am going through what is, quite possibly, the longest bout of writer's block that has ever occurred. And for this, I AM SORRY SORRY SORRY.**

**I was, actually, going to write the whole penultimate chapter. However, I thought the terrible span of four months was terrible, and so I've cut Chapter 38 into two parts, just so I can remind you all that yes, I am alive and no, I haven't abandoned Avarice.**

**Sorry is honestly not enough, so I've an olive branch to give you all.**

**I'd like each and every one of you to drop a Fable fic prompt in my Private Messages. I'll print these out, cut them out and hand pick ONE IDEA from a little hat and write it. It can be WHATEVER THE HELL YOU'D LIKE. Smut, crack, whatever.**

**Keep in mind that if it IS smut, it will be posted at my tumblr account, sploringis2spooky and at my AO3 account. NOT ON FF NET, thanks to the tight rule changes that have been initiated since last I was here.**

**Feedback is, as always, appreciated and I can promise the next wait will not be as long.**


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